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THOS. J. MURRAY. 



HORSE EDUCATION 



A TREATISE 



ON THE ORIGIN, CHARACTERISTICS, AND TRAINING 



HORSES; 



WITH PRESCRIPTIONS FOR ORDINARY DISEASES, 



A SPECIAL DISCUSSION OF THE TRAINING OF 



TROTTERS; 



WITH AN APPENDIX GIVEN TO THE 



Training of Dogs for the Field, 



AND THE SELECTION AND CARE OF COWS, 



■0 

BY / 



THOMAS J. MURRAY. 



SECOND EDITION. 




AURORA, ILL.: 

PRESS OF BUNNELL & WARD. 

189O. 



SF 



, .' ' 



<r\ 



Entered According to Act of Congress, in December, 1889, 

By Thos. Jefferson Murray. 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C 

All Rights Reserved. 



Horse Education. 



THE AUTHOR MAKES HIS BOW. 



Books upon the borse abound, many of them appar- 
ently written on horseback. They are of two classes. 
One is learned, elaborate and expensive; usually writ- 
ten in technical language, above the range of the 
people needing the information. The other is pre- 
pared by men of little scientific knowledge of the horse, 
or of anything else. The object is to bring out some 
pet theory, or to champion a medicine, or to sell a book 
full of talks given first in the street and afterwards 
"published at the request of friends." The first class 
has to much learning to be of practical use, and the 
second, too little. 

The people who most need a book on horsemanship 
are the men who raise two or three colts a year, and 
who ought to do the "breaking" at home; or men 
who keep a few horses for their own use. These two 
classes comprise the bulk of the horse-owners of this 
country, and I have written chiefly for them. I have 
shown them, I think, how to give to their horse ad- 
vanced values by increasing their capabilities and ser- 
viceableness and by prolonging their life. 

After twenty-five years' work in training over three 
thousand colts, and in treating more than four hundred 
vicious horses, my experience has given me confidence 
in my method. I think my statements are true, clear 
and strong, and are given without pedantry or parade. 
The first edition was so favorably received, and so 
promptly disposed of as to warrant plans for issuing 
the book on a larger and finer plan. 



A FAIR TEST OF MY METHODS. 



BREAKING UP ANY VICIOUS BEAST. 



Until I rescind this notice in the Chicago Horseman, 
I will continue to go, on call, to any place within 500 
miles of Chicago and cure, free of charge, any horse 
of any vicious habit, on the following conditions: 

The horse must have his five senses and must be of 
sound horse mind; the breaking up of the vicious 
habit in question must have been tried and given up by 
the local trainers; I must be entertained free of charge, 
while it is necessary for me to remain; no charge will 
be made for the cure, but half of my traveling ^|;pen- 
ses must be paid or guaranteed in advance ; the other 
half I will bear myself; if I fail to cure I will pav all 
the traveling expenses, both ways. Address the 
Author, THOS. J. MURRAY, 

Sandwich, Illinois. 

January 1st, 1890. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter. Page. 

I. Origin of the Horse 17 

II. Education of the Horse 21 

III. To Owners of Colts 24 

IV. To Halter and Lead a Colt 27 

V. To Hitch the Colt Safely 30 

VI. Grooming and Feeding the Colt 32 

VII. How to Bit a Colt 35 

VIII. The Safety Surcingle and Straps , 37 

IX. The Use of the Pole 40 

X. To Harness and Drive a Colt 42 

XI. To Handle a Nervous Horse 44 

XII. The Fretful Horse 46 

XIII. The Kicker 48 

XIV. To Prevent Fence Jumping 52 

XV. The Plabit of Running Away 53 

XVI. Riding a Mustang 55 

XVII. To Hold a Horse Still 57 

XVIII. To Teach the Colt to Back , 58 

XIX. * Getting the Feet Over Halter Strap 59 

XX. Carrying Tail to One Side 60 

XXI. Kicking in the Stall 61 

XXII. The Eclipse Halter 62 

XXIII. The Balky Horse 64 

XXIV. The Bolting Horse 67 

XXV. Hanging Out His Tongue 68 

XXVI. Starting Unbidden 60, 

XXVII. Electricity in the Horse 71 

XXVIII. To Preserve the Horse's Life 72 

XXIX. To Kick, Pull, Run, or Balk 77 

XXX. Gaiting the Horse. 79 

XXXI. The Over-Draw Check 83 

XXXII. The Intellect of the Horse.. S5 

XXXIII. A Lady on Horseback 88 

XXXIV. Why not Use the Saddle Horse? Q2 



CONTENTS. 



XXXV. The Future of Horse Raising 95 

XXXVI. Teaching a Horse Tricks 98 

XXXVII. Tricks of Horse Jockeys 102 

XXXVIII How to Ruin a Colt 105 

XXXIX. The Hardest Case Yet 107 

XL. To be a Good Horse Educator , . . no 

XLI. Trotting in America 112 

XLII. Practical Trotter Training 117 

XLI II. To Develop Speed 121 

XLIV. Science of Breeding Trotters 123 

XLV. Growth Before Speed 127 

XLVI. High Prices for Swift Heels 130 

XLVII. Standard Rules 133 

XLVIII. To Lay Out a Track 135 

XLIX. Morals of the Track 137 

L. The Structure of the Hoof 140 

LI. To Shoe, or Not to Shoe 144 

LII. Shoeing the Horse 148 

LIII. A Horse's Age by his Teeth , 1 50 

LIV. Rysdyk's Hambletonian 152 

LV. Nutwood 155 

LVI. The World's Most Famous Mare 158 

LVII. A Horse Absolutely Perfect 160 

LVIII. The Coming Horse 163 

LIX. Best Trotting Records 167 

LX. The Mule 169 

LXI. The Shetland Pony 173 

LXII. The Health of the Horse 176 

LXIII. Remedies for Diseases 179 

LXIV. Diseases, Symptons, Remedies 180 

LXV. Question Drawer 206 

LXVI. A Model Horseman 216 

LXVII. Teachableness of Dogs 217 

LXVIII. The Dog for Hunting 219 

LXIX. Sheperd's Dog 225 

LXX. Performing Dogs 227 

LXXI. The Dairy Cow 230 

LXXII. Valuable Information 273 



INDEX TO REMEDIES. 



Alterative and Tonic, - - 197 

Appetite Diseased, - - - - 188 

Bandages, Use of - - - - 196 

Balling with Snow, - - - 203 

Bleeding, to Stop - - - - - 181 

Bloodletting, - - - - - 182 

Bog Spavin, - 201 

Bots, ._ - - 189 

Brittle and Contracted Hoofs, - - - 180 

Bruises, Injured Hoofs or Heels, - 201 

Bruises or Cuts, - - - - - 181 

Chapped Heels, - - - 197 

Colic, Flatulent - - - - 191 

Collar Galls, - - - - - 188 

Condition Powder for a Horse, - - 198 

Condition Powders for Hogs, - - 204 

Cooling Lotion, - - - - - 182 

Cords, Soreness of - - - 197 

Corning Beef, Best Mode - 203 

Curb, - - - - - - 184 

Cuts, Bruises, Galls, Stiff Joints, - - - 181 

Diarrhea in Colts, 200 

Disinfectant, a Good -' - 203 

Distemper, - - 186 

Eye of the Horse, Scum on the - - 190 

Founder, - - 186 

Flies, to Protect Horse from - - 200 

Galls, by Saddle or Harness, - - 180 
Grease Heels, _____ jg^ 

Hair on Horse, to Make Grow, - 181 

Harness or Saddle Galls, - - - 197 

Healing Mixture, - - 180 

Healing where Proud Flesh is, - - 180 

Heaves, - - . - • - - 192 



INDEX TO REMEDIES. 9 

Hide Bound Horse, - - - - 196 

Hoof Ointment, -- 203 

Hoof, Brittle and Contracted - - - 180 

Inflammation of the Bowels, - 195 

Lampers, - - - - - -190 

Laundry Soap, to make - 204 

Lead Horse from Burning Barn, to - - 199 

Legs, Swelled, Inflamed or Cold, - - 196 

Lockjaw, - - - - _ - 190 

Mange, - 187 

Mouth, Sore - - - - - 181 

Oil of Gladness, - - - - 199 

Ointment Like Sloan's, - - - - 190 

Pneumonia, - - - - - i Q 8 

Pulse of the Horse, How to Take the - - 202 

Ringbone, - - - - - _ ^3 

Scratches, Four Remedies for - - 194, 195 

Sore Shoulders, - - - - 181 

Spavin, - - ^3 

Splint, - - - - 185 

Sprains, - - 180 

Spring-Halt, - - - - 181 

Stoppage of water, - - . - 188 

Steaming a Horse, - 202 

Sunstroke, - 188 

Sweeney, - ^5 

Swelled Legs. Various Causes, - - 196 

Thrush in Feet of Horse, - - - 201 

Tonic, ----- i 97 

Thorough-pin, - - - - - 201 

Warts on the Horse, - - - - 200 

White Star in the Face, to make - - 190 

Wind Galls and Soft Lumps, - - - 201 

Wounds by Barbed Wire, or by Cuts, . 200 

Worms, . !88 



INDEX TO ENGRAVINGS. 



Author's Portrait. Frontispilce. 

Illustrations. Fronting Page. 

No i Haltering the Colt 28 

No 2 Teaching a Colt to Lead 29 

No 3 To Prevent Halter Breaking 30 

No 4 Bitting the Colt '. 35 

No 5 Surcingle and Foot Straps 37 

No 6 Controlling him with Surcingle 38 

No. 7 Driving in the Poles 42 

No. 8 To Prevent Tail-Switching 50 

No. 9 The Fence-Jumper 52 

No. 10 Training a Colt for Riding 55 

No. 11 Straightening Crooked Tail 60 

No. 12 The Eclipse Halter 62 

No. 13 Rysdyk's Hambletonian and his Owner 152 

No. 14 Nutwood, (600), 2:18^ 156 

No. 15 The Mt. Vernon Mule 170 

No. 16 The Pointer 222 

No. 17 The Dairy Cow 230 



Testimonials 



Ungovernable — Whirl Rouud and Run the Wrong Way. 

Somonauk, III., Aug. 20, 1888. • 
I had a stallion in the year 1872, called Somonauk, that was four 
years old. He had a habit of turning round and starting after any team 
that he might meet' in the road. In this habit he seemed ungovernable. 
After being in Mr. Murray's care a short time he was returned perfectly 
docile snd manageable. 

H. WRIGHT. 



A Stubborn Kicker and Tail-Switcher — Unmanageable. 

Sandwich, III., Aug. 20, 1888. 
In 1887 I undertook to break a fine mare colt when she was three 
years old. She proved a stubborn kicker and tail-switcher, so as to be 
unmanageable by me. After Mr. T. J. Murray had her in tiaining about 
three weeks she was returned to me a quiet, docile worker, without any 
bad habits, and so she continues in any kind of work on the farm. 

C. P. COY. 

He Would go Where he Pleased. 

Sandwich, III., Aug. 10, 188S. 
Early in 1888 I traded for a three-year-old colt that I supposed was 
broken, but he was unmanageable in the harness. He would go where 
he pleased. After he had been in Mr. T. J. Murray's hands about one 
week he was brought back, fit for the cart or the buggy or any other 
kind of work. He has never since betrayed any kind of bad habit. 

AVERY CONE. 

A Hard Kicker in the Harness. 

Plano, III., Aug. 20, 1888. 
About one year ago I had a three-year-old mare colt of so bad a dis- 
position, and so apt to kick, that for the breaking I took her to Mr. T. 
J, Murray. From the first she was a hard kicker in the harness and a 
tail-switcher. After about a month he brought her back as quiet and 
tractable a farm horse as any in this country. I was so well pleased that 
I freely paid double the price asked for the training. 

ALFRED DARNELL, 



12 TESTIMONIALS. 

Spirited — Unmanageable — Made Perfectly Gentle. 

Sandwich, III., Aug. 20, 1888. 
I had, in 1883, a spirited mare five years old that had been hitched 
up once or twice, but she was so wild as to make it very doubtful whether 
she could be made manageable at all. After she had been in the hands 
of Mr. T. J. Murray, of this place, she came back perfectly gentle, so 
that ever since a lady can drive her anywhere. With this one, and with 
others, I know that Mr. Murray has had great success. 

E. A. MANCHESTER. 

Could Never be Made to Work. 

Sandwich, III., Aug. 10, 1888. 
In the year of 1883 Mr. T. J. Murray trained for me a very unpromis- 
ing three-year-old filly. She was of a mare that could never be made to 
work, and this was the only one of her progeny that ever submitted to the 
harness. Mr. Murray returned her to me perfectly docile and tractable, 
and I sold her soon after for $175, to be used for a buggy horse for fami- 
ly driving. She has always since been a trustworthy worker, double or 
single. " STEPHEN ROGERS. 

A Bad Balker— Useless Unless Cured — Fixed in the Bad Habit. 

Sandwich, III., Aug. 8, 1888. 
This is to certify that I took to Mr. T. J. Murray a fine black colt, 
somewhat broken but only to be made, at it seemed, incurably balky. 
He was well known as a very bad balker and he was utterly worthless un- 
less cured. He was firmly fixed in the bad habit. Mr. Murray kept 
him about six weeks, after which he worked right along and has never 
given trouble since. Soon after I got him back I sold him to Mr. Edward 
Thompson, of Sandwich, for a family horse for $ 185. He was after- 
wards sold to Mr. Henry A. Adams, of the Sandwich Manufacturing 
Company, and used as a fine family horse. GEORGE MASON. 

Col. Winchester's Eight Colts. 

Sandwich, III., Aug. io, t888. 
I have been acquainted with Mr. T. J. Murray's method with colts 
and vicious horses for twenty-five years, and I was so certain that he 
would find an animal that was more than a match for him that I have 
kept an eye on his work. I have put in his training, at various times, 
eight colts of mine, because I saw that he was the master of his business. 
Several of them were trotters, and were nervous and hard to manage. 
Mr. Murray made a complete success with them all. 

H. F. WINCHESTER. 



TESTIMONIALS. 



13 



Runaway Mustang Mules — Become Well Mannered. 

Sandwich, III., Sept. 20, 1S88. 
I am now driving a pair of mustang mules that were shipped here 
from Texas. At first they had to be tied and firmly held while being 
harnessed or hitched to the wagon, and when let go they would shoot 
away at full speed for three or five miles before they could be reined up. 
They were driven by several good drivers but they always had their own 
way. Finally I put them in Mr. Murray's hands, and after he had done 
the harnessing and driving in his own way, for about two weeks, they 
became good, quiet, tractable, well-mannered mules. 

P. S. FAIRBANKS. 



A High Tempered Colt — Trained, and Sold for $1100. 

Kingston, N. Y., July 30, 1888. 
To Whom it may Concern: 
In 1883-4, Mr. T. J. Murray, of Sandwich, Illinois, broke and train- 
ed for me two high tempered colts. He was very successful with them 
and they became quiet, steady horses. After about four weeks handling 
I sold one of them for a family horse, and the other has since been sold 
for eleven hundred dollars, for a road horse. I cheerfully and very 
highly commend Mr. Murray's methods of handling horses. 

EDWARD T. STELLE. 
Formerly of Ckicrgo, now of Kingston, New York. 



Unmanageable Stallion— Kicked Furiously in Harness— Escaped 
from Keeper— a Biting, Kicking Terror. 

Sandwich, III., Aug. 14, 1888. 
I had a stallion, in the year 1878, that had been raised by my son, 
that was always unmanageable until he was trained by Mr. T. J. Murray 
of this place. When he was two years old my boys could do nothing 
with him. They could not even take him out of the stable. When he 
was first put in harness he kicked furiously and broke a man's leg 
When he was three years old he was put in charge of an experienced 
keeper from whom he escaped and was retaken with difficulty. When 
Mr. Murray took him he would bite and kick and he was the terror of all 
who knew him. Mr. Murray had him in hand about three weeks, after 
which he was perfectly controllable, and he never afterwards gave his 
keepers any trouble. 

ENOCH DARNELL. 



1 4 TESTIMONIALS. 

Sandwich, III., Sept. 20, 1888. 
Mr. T. J. Murray and myself have been neighbors from our boy- 
hood; for many years he has driven his colts in training past my house, 
and I know his methods well. As the best man for the business, I have 
put under his management, at various times, six colts, all fine bred, and 
valuable animals. One was nervous and high tempered, and one was a 
bad kicker. All of them came out alike; good, quiet, tractable drivers. 

H. HENN1S. 



Every Coltish Vice — Wild, Nervous and a Natural Kicker. 

Chicago, Aug. 2, 1888. 
To Whom it may Concern: • 

In 1882 Mr. T. J. Murray, of Sandwich, Illinois, trained a colt for 
me that had almost every coltish vice, which he inherited. He was wild, 
nervous and a natural kicker and exceedingly headstrong. He had never 
been hitched to any vehicle when Mr. Murray took him. He was re- 
turned to me, after three months, a good, quiet, safe driver. I drove 
him single and double about the city and boulevards for a long time 
with my family. 

I consider Mr. Murray an excellent man to break vicious colts and 
horses and make them quiet and gentle. He is careful and even tem- 
pered. 

IRUS COY. 



OPINIONS OF THE BOOK 



Earlville, III., Nov. iS, 1889. 
I have read Mr. Thos. J. Murray s Book on the horse with much 
interest, and am pleased to say that it is clear, to the point, and full of 
valuable information to any man who owns a horse. 

CHAS. M. SMITH. 



Kingston, N. Y., Nov. 2, 1889. 
Having read the book of T. J. Murray, I cheerfully endorse it as a 
most valuable work, one that every farmer and horse trainer should read 
and carefully and patiently practice in handling their colts. There 
would be fewer unruly, unsafe horses if all were broken as he directs. 

EDWARD T. STEELE. 



Platteville, III., Nov. 14, 1889. 
I cannot commend Mr. Murray's book to highly. It meets the 
wants of all who have anything to do with breeding or training horses. 
To any one, old or young, especially to every farmer, it is indispensable 
as a safe and correct guide. W. S. WEESE. 



Ripley, N. Y., Nov. 23, 1889. 
Mr. Murray's book meets the wants of the farmer and horse-fancier 
and the trainer of trotters. If the horse is at work on the farm, practic- 
ing on the track, or if he is on the sick list, this book is just what his 
owner needs. The first edition was admirable but it gives way to an 
enlarged and still more valuable work. JOHN PATTERSON. 



Aberdeen, Dakota, Nov. 16, 1889. 
I have read Mr. Murray's first edition of his book on horse training 
with the greatest interest. I know of nothing so instructive on that sub- 
ject to the practical breeder and trainer of horses. I look for the second 
edition, with its enlargement and its wider range of topics, as being in- 
dispensable to all who own or handle horses. 

L. C. CULVER. 



1 6 HORSE EDUCATION. 

Highland Stock Farm. 
Dubuque, Iowa, Aug. 9, 1881 
We like your book well. It contains many things of interest and 
profit to any owner or breeder of trotters or other good horses. 

H. L. & T. D. STOUT. 



Pender, Nebraska, Nov. 20, 1889. 
It takes lots of patience, perseverence and common sense to be a 
successful horse trainer, and Mr. Murray is chuck full of these, and so is 
his book. I have read it with the greatest interest, and so should every 
man that owns a horse. It would put fresh money in his pocket every 
year. EDGAR II. SEAMAN. 



Sandwich, III., Jan. 10, 1889. 
I have just read Mr. Murray's Horse Trainer with the greatest in- 
terest. After some years of raising and training fine horses myself, I 
hardly expected to learn much, but the book had the charm of a romance, 
and at the same time it is practical and fujl of valuable information. No 
breeder of horses, or even owner, can afford to do without it. 

E. P. JAYCOX. 

Sale and Livery Stable. ' \ 
Sandwich, III., Jan. 12, 1889. \ 
The Horse Trainer by T. J. Murray of this place is admirable as a 
practical hand book for all who handle horses. The new edition, with 
new plates and one-half more material, will be everything desirable for 
the breeder, trainer or owner of horses. 

J. J. ELLSWORTH, Liveryman. 



Sandwich, III., Jan. 10, 1889. 
For near thirty years I have known Mr. Thos. J. Murray's intelli- 
gent management of horses. His experience and success in training 
horses qualify him well as a teacher of his art. The second edition of 
his book is just what is needed by every farmer and horse-owner in the 
country. I. M. ARNOLD. 



Office of Sandwich Manufacturing Co. 
Sandwich, III., Dec. 10, 1889. 
Mr. Murray's Horse Trainer is full of the most valuable informa- 
tion to every owner of a horse. The new edition, with fine plates and 
one-half more of pages, will mrke a book indispensable to all trainers 
and all owners of good horses. H. A. ADAMS. 



PART FIRST. 

WHERE LIVED THE FIRST HORSE? 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ORIGIN OF THE HORSE. 

The horse has a respectable standing in the 
scanty records of pre-historic times. A horse with 
three toes, and a hoof on each toe, walked about in 
the hardening clay of the Chalk period, ages and ages 
ago. The present single-hoofed animal cannot be 
traced, with any certainty, to the three-toed horse 
whose fossilized feet are found both in Europe and 
America. As far as any records in the rocks are yet 
known, the horse of three separate toes, with a hoof 
on each one, went suddenly out of existence. The 
next record reveals a fossil horse that lived in the 
time of the mastodon, the exact horse of our own 
times. Our horse has but one hoof, and yet, as if he 
worked under a royalty from his three-hoofed and 
extinct ancestor, he has under the skin, just below the 
ankle joint, a little incipient toe. Who will tell us 
whether this budding toe is a record of what our 
horse once possessed or a prediction that he will some 
day sprout additional toes ? One thing is certain, 
there are skeletons of a fossil horse that seems to be 
*he direct ancestor of our present horse. 



1 8 HORSE EDUCATION. 

Julius Caesar found in Britain a horse among the 
natives that was so inferior to the noble animals rid- 
den by his cavalry that the native breed was at once 
improved by crossing. The Romans also carried 
their fine horses into Spain, where the mixed blood, 
under the fine climate, gained rather than lost. When 
William of Normandy entered England, in 1066, his 
splendid horse was of Spanish blood. The Moors 
also carried into Spain the showy Barbs, and this 
upon the old Roman stock made the best civil and 
military horse of Europe. The Turkish horse is 
directly related to the Arabian. The Germans and 
French have selected the best bloods of all the old 
countries, and for military work they are second only 
to the English. England surpasses Arabia in the 
quickness, speed and endurance of her horses. The 
Persian horse is a son of Arabia, with finer form, but 
he is less fleet. This horse came to England in the 
time of Elizabeth. James I., and Charles I. and II., all 
patrons of the turf, imported horses from Arabia, 
Turkey and Morocco. From so many fountains have 
come the beauty and power of the British horse. 

It is a little remarkable, that while the later geolog- 
ical formations of both the Americas abound with the 
fossil bones of the true modern horse, yet there did 
not exist on this continent a living horse when Amer- 
ica was discovered, in 1492. The mustang of Mexi- 
co, the wild horse of South America and that of Aus- 
tralia, can all be traced to European introduction. 

There are also found in Europe bones and rude but 
graphic outlines, carved on antlers and on stones, 
which depict a smaller horse than ours, of heavy build, 



THE ORIGIN OF THE HORSE. 19 

with large head and shaggy mane and tail, much 
resembling the wild horse of southern Russia. It is 
not likely that the present horse of Europe has come 
from a native European ancestry. It is more likely 
that Asia, which was the cradle of the human race, 
preserved the horse in his beauty and usefulness from 
the earliest times. The war horse described by Job, 
who wrote before the days of Abraham, was quite the 
equal of Rienzi, the charger ridden by Sheridan at 
Winchester. The light of civilization, which never 
was withdrawn from all parts of the earth at the same 
time, has always revealed the horse as we know him, 
toiling in the service of man. He probably entered 
Europe through Greece. He has been a powerful 
factor in every form of advanced civilization in all 
times, in both peace and war. It is due to climate 
and intelligent selection that in the varieties of horse 
there are such marked peculiarities as make the differ- 
ences between the Shetland pony, the modern trotter, 
and the London dray-horse. 

The handsomest horse in the world is the Arabian. 
No other is so nearly perfect. There is no fine family 
of horses now living but that is tinged with Arabian 
blood. The Arabian horse at home is scantily fed 
and is unstabled, except as he shares the same roof 
with the family, but his royal blood contributes beauty 
or speed to every race track of Europe and America. 
It is now nearly three hundred years since the im- 
provement of the horse became almost a craze in 
Europe, especially in England. Nobility and royalty 
became rivals on the turf and in the importa- 
tion of foreign blood. Three centuries ago, Barbs, 



20 HORSE EDUCATION. 

Persians and Arabs were candidates for the world's 
favor. They all left the contest defeated but their 
coveted honors crowned their descendants of mixed 
blood. Two hundred years ago there were the 
Darley Arabian and the Childers ; one hundred years 
ago the Messenger; and nearly half a century ago was 
Rysdyk's Hambletonian. Each of these renowned 
horses formed an era in the history of the horse kind, 
and now their descendants can be found in every civil- 
ized land, surpassing their famous ancestry in both 
form and speed. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE EDUCATION OF THE HORSE. 

In some countries, to this day, the people do not be- 
lieve in educating boys. Instinct and painful experi- 
ence they think will give them all the learning that 
boys need. In like manner many people who educate 
their children do not believe in the education of colts. 
If the colt is taught anything at all it is at the rough 
hands of the hired man. The horse is not allowed 
any credit for horse intelligence, for judgment, or sen- 
sitiveness, or gratitude ; and it is an accident if he is 
not made balky, vicious or a regular runaway; or else 
lazy, stupid and uneven in temper and gait. 

Not every boy will repay the expense of a fine edu- 
cation ; it may only serve to put a label on his incom- 
petency. He may belong to a race of giant minds 
among whom a dunce is as rare as a cyclone, but you 
cannot cipher up his good points with a tape measure. 
His speed and endurance, his strength and docility 
cannot be gauged till after expensive and toilsome 
years on the race courses of life. But the colt does 
not finish his first year till it is legible all over him, to 
any one who can read the colt language, exactly in 
what kind of work for man he can excel and to what 
school he had better be sent. Some fine colts are 
equal to only the common school of the plow-horse; 
others will do credit to the academy for horses and 
will shine as the general utility horse — useful, gay and 



22 HORSE EDUCATION. 

dashing, anywhere. The horse college turns out the 
trained and intelligent graduate that can do more sharp 
things than his governor can ; he will understand a 
tone or look, or whatever his master says to him ; he 
can play tricks on his groom and escape work when he 
wants to rest. The university horse begins with fine 
blood. His form and style are not made, but born ; his 
lineage links him to such kings of his kind as were 
carried by the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. He 
would pass on five points of examination : he is of 
purest blood, of large and lustrous eye, of thin and 
sensitive nostrils, of faultless form and unconquerable 
spirit; and of a capability of learning that has been 
sharpened by ages of refining cultivation. There is no 
mistaking him. He prances before the imperial car- 
riage, or bears the commander-in-chief among bursting 
shells and whizzing balls; or he is degraded to draw a 
beer wagon ; but his bearing is so noble, his inherited 
gentility so. evident, as to say, " My education was 
worthy of my birth and I deserve honor of all who 
know a well-bred horse when they see him." 

The art of the horse trainer seeks to make the most 
of the raw material offered him. No one can say that 
the limit of the unprovability of the horse has been 
reached. The education of a horse in the cavalry line 
of service is not at all undertaken as an object, but 
the horse comes to know his duty and to know the 
meaning of military music, so that without a rider he 
will form in line, or make a charge. Professor Bar- 
tholomew's twenty-one performing horses obey five 
hundred different commands, comprising two thou- 
sand different words. The colt is not often left at 



THE EDUCATION OF THE HORSE. 23 

school long enough to be educated to the top of his 
capability. Much depends upon the way his owner 
puts him through his paces for the next year or two 
after leaving school. 



CHAPTER III. 

A WORD TO OWNERS OF COLTS. 

Keep on good terms with your colt ; he will feed 
better; he will have a better character. Do not make 
him live at the end of a long lash, nor as far away as 
you can throw a club. Let him increase the number 
of his human friends as rapidly as possible and attach 
himself to them so that he will leave his animal associ- 
ates to go to them. Do not send a colt to school or to 
work when he is under the weather. How would it 
do to take a man out of the hospital and put him on 
the road ? A little care and quiet rest may save a 
horse's life and also a veterinarian's bill. Do not wait 
for him to talk ; you can learn that he is sick as easily 
as_he can that you are out of temper. 

Many a colt is timid by inheritance. It is not a 
fault, but a misfortune, and it should not be whipped 
out but treated out. It is not in his will but in his 
over-delicate nerves. You will lose time by becoming 
angry with him. Anger teaches nothing good to any- 
body. Suppress your angry tones and cruel strokes. 
Do not send his hot blood from his heart to his head 
to deluge his sensitive brain, driving him to frenzy, or 
blinding him with fear. First make him understand 
what you want him to do. Kind words and caressing 
touches will improve both his mind and temper. You 
will never fail in this way unless you delay the begin- 
ning too long. 



A WORD TO OWNERS OF COLTS. 2$ 

When he tells you that he is afraid of the harness, 
or of a covered carriage, or an upturned load of hay, 
depend upon it this is not an affectation; it is a serious 
business with him. Flogging will not remove it. We 
propose to show you a way to convince him that he is 
mistaken as to the danger. Unless his mind can be 
changed from his aversions he will always be an un- 
certain, if not a dangerous horse. His old fear, un- 
corrected, may seize him any time. Convince him 
that he was wrong and then you have him. 

A colt is always more valuable for not needing to 
be broken. When he is old enough to set up in busi- 
ness for himself he ought to know the horse alphabet 
well. The halter, the bit, the harness, the words that 
mean "Come," "Go on," "Stop," "Back," and the feel- 
ing of pleasure under the owner's hand, should all be 
familiar to him from colt-hood up. One whose edu- 
cation is begun so early will be sure to develop a good 
character. He will never be balky or scary ; nor will 
he be a biter, or kicker, a runaway nor a fence- 
jumper. 

Most of what we call vices in the horse-character 
originate in his instinct of self-defense, or self-preserva- 
tion. When he uses his teeth or his heels, or becomes 
unmanageable from fright, he is resorting to the only 
means he knows of for defending himself. As soon 
as he learns that no harm will come to- him while his 
master is obeyed, and that his efforts to take care of 
himself only injure him, he will reform. The highest 
art of the trainer is to preserve all the original spirit 
of the noble animal and to convince him that his owner 
is his best friend. He will then be a much better 



26 HORSE EDUCATION. 

and more valuable horse than that other one that was 
subdued into a broken-spirited horse after he had 
become a strong, full-grown colt. 

Be gentle with the colt that is not wicked but ner- 
vous. Perhaps hard treatment has made him suspi- 
cious and timid. Some colts are frightened and will 
kick even when you give them a dry straw bedding. 
It means that in the process they have sometime been 
hurt with the pitchfork. Do not think him wicked 
for he is only nervous, and is on the alert to defend 
himself. Use the pole described in chapter iv until 
he understands that no touches about his body, legs 
or head, will at all hurt him. Take the pole instead 
of vour hands, because the trainer may be hurt by be- 
ing too near, before the colt has learned his lesson. If 
he is afraid of the harness, or of handling in any way, 
the pole will the most certainly and most speedily 
quiet his nerves, and teach him he is in no danger. 

Training a colt is done more easily at the age of 
two years, than it is ever done afterward. At that 
age the colt has not learned many bad habits; he is not 
headstrong; he is tractable; will more readily give up. 
Even if the owner does not need the work of the two- 
year-old, it is better to give him his lessons and once 
in a while give him exercise in the harness for the 
next year or two, and he will be a better horse for it 
as long as he lives. No need then of surcingle and 
ropes, or of pulling him to his knees. If the owner 
raises but two or three colts a year they can be kept 
as tame and gentle as old horses, from colt-hood up. 



PART SECOND. 

PRACTICAL HORSE TRAINING. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOW TO HALTER AND LEAD A COLT. 

It is an easy matter to halter and lead a colt that 
has been properly taken care of all his life. He will 
give no trouble in haltering and leading. He will 
never be wild nor unmanageable, and all the other- 
wise preliminary work of quieting him will be already 
done. He will be the better horse all his life for hav- 
ing been properly brought up. In the work of sub- 
jecting him to the bit and harness, the owner of the 
gentle and docile animal can pass by all that is said 
here of the wild native. If his owner has always 
given him proper care, no need to call in the neighbors 
nor the professional horse trainer. One of the boys 
can do all the harnessing and first driving himself. 
The colt will readily yield to every step of the process 
of training. But if he has always run out, without 
care, as most colts do, the violence with which he 
must be brought to terms may be attended with dan- 
ger to him, arid it certainly will demand a good deal 
of careful work. If he is wild as a deer he may meet 
with some misfortune, as a fall or a choking, that may 
severelv injure him. 



28 HORSE EDUCATION. 

If the colt must be treated like a young horse irom 
the plains, first drive him or coax him into a box stall, 
a paddock, or a small enclosure, being sure that he 
cannot escape, or hurt himself by getting under or 
over the sides. Procure a blunt pole, eight or ten 
feet long, and begin by touching him slightly, anywhere 
about his body, his neck and head, until he becomes 
quite used to it. At first he may appear shy, or even 
become excited, but by keeping at him and not hurt- 
ing nor needlessly alarming him, you will soon be able 
to lay your hand on his neck and head. The great 
fear a colt has is the touch of a man's hand ; but the 
most sensitive will, with the use of the pole, become 
quiet and will allow the touch of the hand upon the 
body or on the head or neck. 

If he is vicious and inclines to kick, use the pole 
vigorously at the flanks, and, when he grows quiet, 
walk up to him and pat him on the neck and head, 
speaking kindly to him until he understands that he is 
not going to be hurt. Then proceed by taking the 
Eclipse halter in the left hand, letting the colt smell of 
it, and placing it against him and over him, till it does 
not disturb him. Then buckle the strap gently about 
his neck and slip the rope over his nose. This style 
of halter has great advantages over the old style war- 
bridle, as it prevents the tearing of the animal's mouth. 
Sometimes a horse never recovers from the effects of 
the misuse of his mouth by a mouth-halter of the old 
style. The first lessons given to the colt should be 
planned so that he is spared all needless cruelty. I 
reject all theories of horse-training whose first princi- 
ple is to break the spirit of the colt by violent methods. 



o 




m» 




HOW TO HALTER AND LEAD A COLT. 20, 

The coif being haltered, the next step is to teach 
him to lead. Always keep your colt as good natured 
as possible and do not allow him to grow sullen. 
Step away from the colt eight or ten feet ; not directly 
in front of him but at a right angle from him, opposite 
his shoulder. Never try to lead him ahead till he un- 
derstands the side pulls. Give him now a slight putf 
on the rope, saying, "Come here," and then allow the 
rope to fall slack. If he turns his head towards you 
pat him on the neck and talk kindly to him, but if he 
draws back or turns away, give a vigorous jerk on the 
rope. Keep at him on one side until he comes to you, 
and then try him on the other side. In fifteen or 
twenty minutes he will follow you about. 



CHAPTER V. 

nOW TO HITCH THE COLT IN THE BARN. 

Now that the colt has been reduced to the dominion 
of the halter, he may be taken into the stable and 
hitched in such a way as to prevent his ever becoming 
a halter-breaker. Take a three-quarter inch rope, about 
twenty feet long, and tie one end around his body just 
back of his shoulders. Do not tie the rope so that it 
can slip, but use a square knot, as the slip knot may 
prove damaging to a hard puller. Pass the other end 
of the rope between his front legs, through the chin 
piece of his halter, and tie to the manger. In using 
this rope a five-ringed halter must be used, instead of 
the first one put on. 

Now that you have him securely fastened, shake 
something in front of his eyes, or in some way induce 
him to make the experiment of pulling back. A horse 
in pulling back, throws his head high in the air. 
That is prevented with this contrivance, as it keeps his 
head on the level with his shoulders and the manger, 
so that he has no brace for a strong pull. 

A halter puller, or a bridle breaker, hitched in this 
way, will soon give up the habit. When pulling on 
the halter is corrected by making him draw on a rope 
placed under his tail, he is liable to injury and he may 
be disfigured, and it may make him sensitive for the 
rest of his life about the use of the crupper. Our 
method prevents a horse from shaking his head while 



HOW TO HITCH THE COLT IN THE BARN. 3 1 

puning, and by it, he cannot bruise his head or injure 
his eyes. This is the safest and best way of hitching 
colts and halter breakers, and from long experience I 
strongly recommend it for that purpose. 

Now, here, at almost the first step in our work of 
training a wild colt, I enter my most emphatic protest 
againt all hitching of colts by the mouth, or by the 
tail, It is cruel. It is unhorsemanlike. It is liable 
to work great damage to the colt. It is of no use, for 
there are better methods. No man can work for me, 
or with me, who will use that needlessly severe and 
dangerous method of hitching colts. 



CHAPTER VI. 

GROOMING AND FEEDING THE SUBDUED COLT. 

The time for training the colt should be taken 
when he is in fine health and spirits. If you select a 
time for schooling him when he is poor, weak and 
out of heart, you probably will have it to do over 
again. The colt, if at all wild, will never, while he 
lives, meet a harder day's work than that one in which 
he is haltered, tamed and hitched in the barn. He will 
need to be as well fed and groomed during the next 
forty days as though he were breaking prairie sod. 

The first object of grooming the tied-up colt is to 
make iriends with him. The manner of it must make 
it a pleasure to him, and nothing will so rapidly in- 
spire in him affection for his new master as frequently 
to use the horse-brush on him. It is not so much to 
clean his coat that you rub him down, though comfort 
and cleanliness are as good for a colt as for a boy, 
but it is the best way to work for his good will and to 
cultivate in him docility of disposition. He must hear 
your friendly, assuring voice while he feels your sooth- 
ing, comforting hand. Every gentle touch, each 
quieting tone, has a value in transforming the wild, 
sensitive, or even vicious colt into the docile, service- 
able horse. Careful grooming has many advantages 
for any horse : it educates him, makes a friend of him, 
makes him trustful; it gives not only a polish to his 
coat, but it calls to the surface a fine oil, which 



GROOMING AND FEEDING THE SUBDUED COLT. 33 

smooths his coat and prepares him to resist cold if he 
should be exposed to the rain, and it imparts health- 
fulness to his skin. A well-groomed horse will be 
sleek, and fat, and fine spirited on a smaller quantity of 
feed than the ungroomed. 

As to feeding, two or three facts kept in mind will 
be a sufficient guide to the owner. The change from 
all hay, or from all grass, to grain, must be gradual. 
The horse's stomach is the smallest of all stomachs in 
proportion to the animal's size. Of the grain eaten by 
the horse, four times its weight of saliva will pass into 
the stomach with the food. Four quarts of oats, then, 
with the saliva, will completely fill his stomach. 
The food of the horse passes out into the intestines in 
the order in which it is taken; the later-taken hay 
will push out the earlier-taken grain, and vice versa. 

It is. to the advantage of the horse, and it is econom- 
ical, to feed the light food, as hay, first, and at the 
last to give the grain, so that the most nutritious food 
will remain the longest in the stomach. Water, 
given just before feeding, lowers the temperature and 
dilutes and weakens the digestive fluid. If the water 
is given very soon after eating it will push out the 
food before it is well digested. Wheat, corn and rye 
are too heating for summer feed for a working horse, 
or for a fast driver. Oats, if coarsely ground, or 
soaked in tepid water, will give one-fifth more nour- 
ishment than if unground or dry. Corn meal and 
shorts are too rich for feed. A horse digests his food 
very rapidly, and after his stomach has become empty, 
which is in four hours after eating, he is weak, and to 
go on longer causes a great and needless exhaustion. 



34 HORSE EDUCATION. 

Better drive faster and feed every five hours regularly, 
than to drive slowly, keeping the horse hungry and 
faint. It is economy of food, and better for the 
horse, to give the feed with regularity. He will do 
more and better work for it.. 

Beside these facts so generally known, the owner 
must study the appetite of his colt. Horses differ 
greatly in their taste for different kinds of food, and 
as to quantities needed. If the old Grecian oracle had 
been controlled by the spirit of a good horse, after 
saying, "Man, know thyself," he would have added, 
"Man, know thy horse." 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOW TO BIT A COLT. 

Place upon him a common blind bridle with long 
lines and lead him into some vacant field where you 
will have plenty of room. Throw one line on the op- 
posite side of the colt and step back and draw gently 
on the inner line until he circles around you. When 
he will do this satisfactorily, throw the inner line over 
and make him go in the reverse direction. If he tries 
to jump or run away, drop one line and draw him to 
you with the other one. Sometimes, if wild and nerv- 
ous, he cannot be controlled with the lines at all. If 
you throw the lines over, or around behind him, he 
may kick with fright and become only the more un- 
manageable. He will want a surcingle and foot 
ropes. See cut on page 42. 

Nothing can be done with two lines when he begins 
to plunge or kick. Quiet the colt and go through the 
same process until he circles around you nicely, both 
ways. Now start him straight ahead, teaching him at 
the word "Get up," to start, and to stop at the word 
"Whoa." Drive him up to anything that you think 
might frighten him, and never let him leave anything 
that he is afraid of until he goes up to it and finds out 
that it will not harm him. Let him see it on all sides 
and let him smell of it. Have him understand it till he 
will remain quietly beside it. Do all this very quietly 
and leisurely. If he seems really afraid of it, go up to 



36 ' HORSE EDUCATION. 

it yourself and let him see you touch it. He will 
have need to be practiced with the bit in this way for 
three or four days, till he turns readily by the line to 
the right or left. Do not be in a hurry to set him to 
drawing anything. He will learn more readily when 
you are on the ground with him than he would if 
hitched to the cart, or to the wagon; he will 
more rapidly acquire confidence in you as his friend. 
It is likewise your best method of learning his disposi- 
tion so as to adapt your measures to his temperament. 
While he is learning the use of the bit you will suc- 
ceed better in getting scariness out of him than in any 
other way. 




No. 5. — Surcingle and'Foot Straps. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SAFETY SURCINGLE AND FOOT STRAPS. 

This surcingle is so important in the controlling of a 
colt, otherwise unmanageable, that its description is 
placed here. It is necessary in controlling any colt 
that is fretful, vicious, a kicker, a runaway or a balk- 
er. If there is anything else that comes of willfulness 
or stubbornness, this instrument is the simplest thing 
with which to secure obedience; and it is at the same 
time the most direct and the least harmful to the ani- 
mal. 

This surcingle is made of a strap of heavy leather, 
six-and-a-half feet in length and one-and-a-half inches 
in width, and it is doubled from the buckle to the third 
ring. This is the size of surcingle that I use, but it 
may be as much wider as you choose, although I have 
yet to see the horse that one of these dimensions will 
not hold. Use an inch-and-a-half buckle, and have 
holes enough cut in the strap so that it can be readily 
put on a small or a large horse. Put on it three rings, 
one-and-a-half inches in diameter. Fasten one about 
eight inches from the buckle, placing it lengthwise 
with the strap. Place the next one six inches from 
the first, fixing it crosswise on the strap, and then put 
the third one lengthwise, six inches from the second. 

This is the kind of surcingle always alluded to in 
connection with the foot straps described below. It 
is not excelled by any invention for runaway or kick- 



38 HORSE EDUCATION. 

ing horses, and it should always be used in teaching a 
horse to become used to strange sights and sounds, 
such as umbrellas, bicycles, top carriages, loose pa- 
pers or discharge of fire arms, and it can always be 
used to good advantage on a fretful horse. 

To make the foot straps, take a strap of leather six- 
teen inches in length and one-and-a-half inches in 
width, and fasten on it an inch-and-a-half ring, about 
two inches from the buckle, or one inch from the loop. 
To use this surcingle with the foot straps, first put on 
the surcingle, with the rings underneath, and then 
buckle on the foot straps. 

Now take twenty-five feet of half -inch cotton rope 
and pass one end through the belt ring on the surcin- 
gle, down through the ring on the left foot, then through 
the middle ring on the surcingle, through the ring on 
the right foot, and tie it to the third ring on the sur- 
cingle. This is the method if you are driving double 
and the colt is on the off side, but if the colt is on the 
near side commence to put on the rope from the right 
side, for in any event the rope should come between 
the horses. 

No horse, unless he is perfectly gentle, should have 
his first lessons in the poles without the surcingle and 
foot straps. 

This invention is just as useful for controlling cat- 
tle as for horses. When butchers bring an animal 
from the country it is very commonly done by two or 
three men on horseback, racing into every open field 
and garden, and so heating the blood and maddening 
the creature as to injure the beef. One man can, with 
the farmer's assistance, put the surcingle and foot 



o 








THE SAFETY SURCINGLE AND FOOT STRAPS. 39 

straps on the cow or ox and quietly drive the creature 
anywhere. There ought to be a stringent law forbid- 
ding the usual method of driving cattle intended for 
beef. The nerves and blood passages become heated 
and the blood serves like steam to warm, unnaturally, 
the flesh. The meat does not keep so well; it is not 
so tender and juicy. If the surcingle and straps are 
used, the animal becomes quiet in a few minutes. 

If a horse is at all wild it saves much time to use 
this method of controlling him. A colt can be trained 
in this way in ten days, when without it he may re- 
quire a year to teach him to be steady and perfectly 
obedient. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE USE OF THE POLE. 

The pole is an insignificant implement in appear- 
ance, but it has a very important place in the trainer's 
art. It may be made of any light and strong wood 
as ash, walnut, cane, or even of pine. It may be 
eight or ten feet long, so that if it provokes a kick, the 
kicking may not hurt any one. The object of the pole 
is to touch the colt at unexpected times and places, and 
to teach him that no touching will hurt him. 

To make certain that he will not be hurt, the execu- 
tive end of the pole had better be covered with a ball, 
or a puffed and tightly stuffed cover, so that even by 
accident the animal will not be needlessly irritated. 

The pole is now ready for use. It is the trainer's 
emblem of authority, and more potent than the ma- 
gician's wand, or Neptune's trident. The reader will 
see in chapter iv that the first touch of the trainer to 
a wild colt is with the pole. He is not to be struck 
with it but to be touched with the end of it, only. 
This pole touching is to be continued on every part of 
his body and legs till it does not disturb him. If any 
part seems to be sensitive that part must be cultivated 
with the end of the pole till it does not annoy him at 
all. The process is to be continued till the touch of 
the pole is a signal to him to be still, so that feeling it 
at any time, or anywhere, he will stop and stand still. 

When the harness is about to be put on for the first 



THE USE OF THE POLE. 4I 

time the pole process must be repeated till nothing 
about the harness will in any way alarm or trouble 
him. When he is driven along, he must learn that he 
is liable to be touched any time, or any where, about 
his body, legs, tail, neck or head, and the lesson is not 
fully taught to him till he understands that the touch is 
intended rather to quiet him than to disturb him. 

The pole process will, more than anything else, help 
a young horse to overcome his nervousness. A run- 
away often results from the horse being touched by a 
strap, or a trace, or by other unexpected objects, en- 
dangering property, limbs and life. I have found at 
times that a colt seemed perfectly gentle and would 
bear the pole almost anywhere, but if suddenly 
touched at some point where the pole had never 
reached him, he would start in the greatest fright. 
The trainer's first lessons are not done till he has so 
familiarized the horse with the pole that it is restful to 
him to be touched with it. 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW TO HARNESS AND DRIVE A COLT. 

In harnessing a colt, first see that the harness is pei- 
fectly safe, and see also that it fits well. Many acci- 
dents have occurred from an insecure or loose-fitting 
harness. Allow the colt to see it and to smell it freely. 
Then lay the harness gently on his back. Never be 
too hasty about throwing it on his back, but do so de- 
liberately. When the harness is once on take it off 
again and put it on, doing so until the colt does not 
mind it. 

When first driving a colt with the harness on, do not 
put the lines through the terret rings, or the thill straps, 
for if he should turn on you he would be liable to run 
away, as you would have no way of bringing him to 
you, because drawing on one line would perhaps tan- 
gle him up, and you would eventually be obliged to 
drop the line." 

Now, after he is accustomed to the harness, and un- 
derstands when to start and to stop, he is ready to be 
hitched to the cart or poles. The poles are made of 
hickory, or any tough wood, nine-and-a-half feet in 
length, and two-and-a-half inches in diameter at the 
large ends. Put the small end of the poles through 
the thill straps, and pass the thill girth through the 
thill straps; and also through the staples in the poles 
sixteen inches from the front ends, and buckle tight. 
If the colt is wild, or nervous, use the safety surcingle. 
(See cut on page 49.) 



HOW TO HARNESS AND DRIVE A COLT. 43 

If you wish to drive the colt double, hitch him On the 
off, or right hand side, as it will be more convenient in 
getting in and out of the wagon on the side next to the 
gentle horse. Be sure to make the old horse stop 
when you stop the colt. Have the rope so that it will 
come between the two horses. In driving single, have 
the rope in the left hand and the lines in the right. 
Give the colt a loose rein to start off with, and if he 
starts to run, or jump, pull the rope carefully. Do not 
throw him to his knees only as a last resort, and never 
allow the colt to run before you throw, for if he is 
thrown while running on a hard road he might be in- 
jured. On starting out, always drive the colt at a 
walk, as it will quiet his spirits, and it is no trouble to 
teach him to trot after you have him in the habit of 
regular movement. Keep the surcingle on him for 
three or four times, as it is better to use it once too of- 
ten than not enough. 



CHAPTER XL 

HOW TO HANDLE A NERVOUS HORSE. 

Nervousness can never be taken out of a horse, any- 
more than it can be taken out of a man, but in both 
cases its possessor can learn to control it. It does not 
harm him when once it is controlled. A horse that is 
capable of high intelligence is always of a delicate 
nervous structure, and he does not need to have the 
tendency to nervousness repressed so much as he 
wants to have it educated. The great thing that he 
must be taught is that the things which frighten him 
will really not harm him. To teach him this, he must 
be exposed to all the frightening things about him, and 
then be held quiet till he learns that they are all en- 
tirely harmless. For example, you can touch him with 
the pole till, instead of running or kicking, he will 
stop and stand still as soon as he is touched. Put on 
the surcingle and ropes and touch him with the pole, 
holding him steady and quiet by the control you have 
of his feet. Let him drag tin pans and kettles ; let 
some one throw bags of straw down right before him. 
Of course he will start and try to run, but you will 
hold him fast. You may take a bag of straw and put 
it over him, hit him with it, throw it under his feet, 
throw it before him as he walks, until at last he be- 
comes no more disturbed than when he hears his oats 
coming 

A neighbor of mine owns a nervous young horse, 



HOW TO HANDLE A NERVOUS HORSE. 



45 



trained by himself from colt-hood. When Duke be- 
comes frightened, he is quieted in a moment, on hear- 
ing his driver say, " All right, Duke, all right." He 
was once driven quite close to a noisy band, just as it 
struck a rattling tune; there was a precious freight 
in the buggy, and the young Duke became frantic. 
In a few moments he heard through the din and 
blare of the band the voice of his master saying, 
" All right, Duke, all right," and in an instant Duke 
was as quiet as if in the stable. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HOW TO HANDLE A FRETFUL HORSE. 

A fretful horse is uneasy under the harness or sad- 
dle. He must trot when he ought to walk, and he is 
restless, and chafes if held back. He takes twenty 
steps when five would be better. He is angry if he is 
held back to an even step with a quiet horse, and he 
tires himself out while the quiet horse beside him is 
resting himself. 

Fretfulness originates in unusual sensitiveness of 
nerves, but it is often cultivated by carelessness in 
first handling. The owner, or the trainer, has failed to 
give the time needed for his delicate work, or he has 
fretted himself and so he has started the habit in the 
colt. If you are cool and patient, and give as much 
time as you ought, you may do much to prevent the 
habit, or you may rescue him from it. If he is already 
fretful, hitch him on the cart after he has been prac- 
ticed with the surcingle and the ropes, and obeys them 
well, letting him know that you have perfect control of 
his feet. Use a straight bar bit, and be very careful 
not to hurt his mouth. It will not do to let him get 
angry or excited. Start him slowly, and if he begins 
to trot let him go for a short distance and then draw 
on the rope; at the same time pull on the lines and 
steady him with soothing words. Do not take his feet 
away under any circumstances, unless you are abso- 
lutely compelled to, as it may make him more excited 



HOW TO HANDLE A FRETFUL HORSE. 4.7 

and wild than ever. When he starts into a trot draw 
gently on the lines and the ropes, talking to him sooth- 
ingly till he gets into a walk. If he will trot again, 
let him for a little and check him up easily, and he will 
soon be as willing to walk as to trot. 

After you have slowed him down let him walk again, 
and repeat the process until he will obey the lines with- 
out your having to draw up on the foot ropes. Do not 
be easily discouraged if the horse does not readily 
learn. It sometimes takes from three to four weeks 
to train one of a fretful habit. 

It should encourage the trainer to remember that a 
horse has a great deal more intelligence and more 
value for his having sensitive nerves. His percep- 
tions will be more prompt, and his responses to his 
driver's words and signs will be more cheerful and 
more accurate. After he is convinced that nothing 
will harm him his manner will become affectionate, and 
even if not more than half trained, he will never dis- 
obey intentionally. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOW TO HANDLE A KICKER. 

You will find, as a rule, that quite a large propor- 
tion of the mare colts are inclined to kick. This is 
one of the habits that cannot be coaxed out of a colt, 
but it usually requires severe treatment for some time. 
Hitch the kicking animal to the poles, first seeing that 
the surcingle is secure. After you have taught him 
that you can perfectly control him by this means, drive 
the colt ahead, and, at short intervals, turn him quickly 
to the right, or so that the pole will strike him on the 
legs. When he is about to kick, which you can tell 
by watching his head and ears, throw him to his knees 
and apply the whip smartly to his hind quarters. As 
soon as he is thrown, slacken the rope so that he can 
rise to his feet immediately. Always give him his feet 
instantly. When he gets used to the touch of the 
poles, use the hand pole by touching him on the legs 
and body, to test him thoroughly, and throwing him 
every time he makes a movement to kick. It will not 
be long till he will entirely get out of the kicking 
habit. 

For single driving, till all sensitiveness is certainly 
past, use a kicking strap, which passes over the hips 
and fastens securely to the shafts on each side. Even 
if the colt seems to have entirely given up the habit of 
kicking, great care must still be taken till the owner is 
satisfied that there is no danger of its recurrence. 



HOW TO HANDLE A KICKER. 49 

In training a kicking colt fix your harness so that 
some part or other will hit his heels, or strike his sides, 
and if he looks like kicking touch the ropes to let him 
know that you are ready at an instant's notice. Let 
him become used to having ropes and chains dangling 
round his heels, or striking his legs, so that when 
he is hitched to the plow or to the harrow, no flying 
chain or striking whiffletree will ever disturb him. If 
you would cure the kicking habit in a colt you must 
expose him to all the occasions of kicking, and at the 
sign of a kick, take his feet from under him instantly. 
Let the disagreeable punishment follow every attempt 
to kick, and he will soon be afraid to lift his foot. 
When he is standing in the stall, unexpectedly to him- 
self touch his legs and body with the pole, and if he 
kicks, punish him for it with the whip. 

As a general thing a. colt that is a kicker is a tail- 
switcher. This habit can be broken at the same time. 
Procure a small rope from one to two feet long. Fast- 
en one end of the rope to the end of the horse's tai 
and draw the tail over his back and fasten to back band 
of the harness. Now pass a surcingle around his flanks 
and over the tail, directly forward of the stifle, so as to 
hold the tail still. Great care must be taken, for, if 
he ever will kick, his heels will be up now. Start him 
forward, using the whip frequently on his hind legs ? 
and bring him to his knees as often as he tries to kick. 
After having the tail in this position for an hour, it 
should be released. Care must be taken not to leave 
it tied in this manner more than an hour, as it will be 
seen that when the tail is freed it will hang limp and 
motionless for some time. Three or four lessons of this 

4 



50 HORSE EDUCATION. 

sort will cure the worst tail-switcher. I have broken 
up the habit of kicking in a great many horses and I 
have never yet left one that was not broken entirely 
of tail-switching. 

In 1883 Mr. Thomas Canham brought me a young 
mare that he was unable to hitch double on account of 
her kicking. He said he wanted her broken if it would 
not cost more than she was worth. She was a very 
bad kicker. This was not difficult to cure, but she was 
a very bad tail-switcher. I tied the tail back to the 
back band. The wriggling went on all the same. She 
kicked the box stall to pieces, got out doors and kept 
on kicking there. Then I unbuckled the straps and 
put on the surcingle and foot ropes, and then put 
another surcingle around her as far back as the flanks 
would allow, holding the tail where it could not move. 
She was then completely controllable and soon gave 
up this unpleasant trick. I returned her cured and 
quiet in three weeks. When the tail is so tied up, it is 
indispensable to use the surcingle and foot ropes, as 
otherwise the work is useless. This is a severe 
method on the animal, but the lesson may be for an 
hour or so only, and the process is effectual. Repeat 
the lesson till it is learned. 

The line falling under the tail often causes a horse 
to kick, when danger always follows, and sometimes 
damage. What begins the trouble is suddenly and 
sharply pulling the line out from under the tail. A 
few raspings in this way may fix an ugly and danger- 
ous habit. Begin with the colt, and leave a strap un- 
der his tail, as long as he chooses to hold it. Let him 
often have the line under his tail and do not pull it away. 



HOW TO HANDLE A KICKER. 5 1 

Wait till the pressure slackens, and then draw it out, 
or let it drop away. Only a few days are necessary 
to cure the sensitiveness of the animal about the line 
getting- under the tail, but it can only be done by judi- 
cious and gentle treatment. The tail of a horse should 
be handled as gently as his head. When you adjust 
the crupper the tail must not be used roughly nor be 
rudely let fall when you are done. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

TO PREVENT FENCE-JUMPING. 

Place the surcingle around his body with a ring di- 
rectly behind each forward leg and a ring on his back. 
Put a strap, with a ring on it, around the fetlock of 
each front foot. Fasten a rope or strap to the ring on 
one of his feet, — say the left foot, — pass it through the 
lower ring on the same side and through the ring 
over his back, and then through the ring on the op- 
posite side. Draw the rope or strap moderately tight. 
This gives the horse freedom in walking or trotting, 
but will prevent all efforts at running or jumping. 

A horse is hardly accountable for the habit of jump- 
ing fences. The fence was poor to begin with, or the 
boys taught him to jump for the fun of it, or he fol- 
lowed the older horses that should have been broken 
of the habit long before. The habit is a great in- 
convenience, and it ought to be cured before another 
day. 



CHAPTER XV. 

TO CURE THE HABIT OF RUNNING AWAY. 

In driving a runaway horse some severe bit must be 
used; the best here is the Rockwell, in connection with 
the surcingle and the ropes. Take him into the yard 
and at every start pull on the lines, and also throw him 
to his knees. At the same time use the word "Whoa." 
And here notice that you should never use the word 
" Whoa " to the horse unless you want him to stop at 
once. After a short time you will find he will obey 
the slightest pull on the lines. In driving him, if he 
starts to run, let him go for a short distance, and 
then, if he does not heed the lines, draw gradually on 
the foot ropes, thereby impeding his progress greatly, 
as it does not give him free control of his limbs, and 
in this way diverting his attention from his running. 
Then let him run several times and repeat and he will 
soon find that you have perfect control of him. 

Smaller towns and country roads are often made 
lively by the running away of teams. In the wagon 
or carriage there are often women and children who 
are unable to help themselves, and they are often 
taken up injured or killed. No man who handles 
horses should allow such things to occur. There is 
no need for it. The driver of a horse should inform 
himself as to the habits of his horse, and he should 
not risk the lives of the helpless portion of his family. 
With proper training any ordinary horse can be made 



54 HORSE EDUCATION. 

safe enough for a woman to drive him. One horse 
may need a certain kind of bit, another may need 
practicing under a firm and steady hand, but it is prac- 
tically true that any horse can be made a safe driver. 
What shall we say of the man who, by his carelessness 
or his penuriousness, requires his wife and children to 
ride after a horse that every day endangers their lives ? 

There is no need for it and one who is once fairly 
warned, as is the reader of this page, should be held 
responsible by public opinion. No horse properly 
trained will ever endanger a life by running away. 

After all a trained colt is much like a boy who has 
Some good habits but that has not seen much of the 
\yorld. He does not know everything nor is he proof 
against surprises. He is not equal to every emergency. 
It will be the safest to test the young horse well be- 
fore putting the reins in the hands of a woman for 
driving. A lady's driving horse ought to be used in 
a livery for a year, or be driven daily for as long by a 
careful man before he ought to be called a lady's horse. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

HOW TO RIDE A HORSE. 

In describing this I will explain the manner in 
which to ride a mustang, and after one has accom- 
plished this he will be able to ride any horse, for the 
mustang is the hardest of all horses to break to ride. 

Place the saddle securely and use a bridle with 
long lines. Take him into the barn-yard and teach 
him to guide as you would in breaking a colt. Be 
very careful of the pony's mouth, as their mouths are 
very tender, and if they once become sore the animal 
grows ugly and unmanageable. After he begins to 
understand which way to turn, and when to start and 
stop, put on the safety surcingle, described in chap- 
ter vni, the saddle in the meantime having been taken 
off and the long lines substituted for reins. Keep 
hold of the rope only and teach him that you can at 
any moment take his feet from under him. 

If he is extremely wild keep him down, walk up to 
him and pat him on the head and different parts of his 
body. It is best with particularly wild horses to have 
one to hold the rope and the other to keep near the 
horse, patting him when he is down and trying as 
much as possible to quiet him. After he becomes 
sufficiently pacified, jump up against him and if he 
springs away or backs, take away his feet. Then 
hang upon one side and drop off again, repeating this 
until he shall allow you to mount him without draw- 



56 HORSE EDUCATION. 

ing back or kicking. If there are any reasons to be- 
lieve that your colt has a very unruly spirit, take no 
chances with him. Advance slowly and surely. Af- 
ter you have taught him the use of the foot ropes and 
surcingle, with these and an open bridle upon him, let 
some alert rider mount him. You can stand in the 
center holding the rope that controls his feet. Then 
let him go around you, turn him and let him go in the 
opposite direction, then straight forward, let him trot, 
or even gallop a few steps. Do not let the rider use 
the bridle except very gently, as the use of the bit 
may exasperate him. A few lessons with the surcin- 
gle and foot ropes will suffice to break any horse or 
mustang for riding. No horse trained for the 
saddle, in this way, will ever be given to bucking or 
to any other vicious habit. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

TO HOLD THE HORSE. 

It is often desirable to have a horse stand still to be 
bathed, or where there is no hitching post. If he has 
a sore neck or a sensitive back, or if he must have 
any treatment, you can easily hold him in the follow- 
ing manner: Take two hame straps, with a ring in 
one of them, and buckle one around each ankle below 
the fetlock, and then using the ring and one of the 
straps buckle the feet closely together. Then the horse 
will stand anywhere, and for any length of time. It 
will answer instead of hitching. This would be cruel 
on a horse in time of flies, but it is a great conven- 
ience in dressing a wound on him. If this is needed 
frequently a strap with a buckle on it, with a ring in 
the middle of it, is verv convenient. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

TO TEACH THE COLT IN HARNESS TO BACK. 

Put on the colt a single harness and lead him into a 
narrow stall. Take hold of the lines and pull his 
head around to the right, cramping him well round in 
the narrow stall. Hold his head in that position, and 
pulling on your lines, say, "Back, back, sir." As he 
cannot turn around in the stall he will yield to the 
steady tension of the line and will back out, and he 
will soon connect the word with the pressure, and be- 
fore long he will obey the word without the pulling 
and will walk straight back. Continue the exercise 
till he obeys satisfactorily. Now take him out of 
doors and practice him there until he will back read- 
ily. Put him in the harness and drive up to a barn or 
to a fence and stop and back him. Keep at him in 
this way till he has it thoroughly learned. 

It is only a matter of a week or two to teach a 
horse to back as much as he can pull, and also to 
obey the word without your touching the lines. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

TO PREVENT THE FEET FROM GETTING OVER THE 
HALTER STRAP. 

Buckle a strap around each front leg between the 
fetlock and the knee. In each of these straps fix a 
ring. Now take a small rope or cord and tie one end 
of it to one of these rings, and the other end to the 
other ring, so that there will be about eighteen inches 
slack. This will allow a free enough movement of 
the feet, but not so that either foot can be raised 
over the halter strap. He will soon learn to move 
around in his stall, and to lie down and to get up, 
without hurting himself, and he will soon forget the 
old habit. In tying him to the manger do not give 
him more than two feet of halter strap. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE HORSE CARRIES HIS TAIL TO ONE SIDE. 

There is many a fine horse whose value is greatly 
lessened, if not quite destroyed, by his tail hanging to 
one side. It is a disfigurement that unfits for almost 
any work, and though he may have blood and spirit 
and form worthy of high honors and prices, yet he 
must spend his life in the dray, or before the plow or 
the horse cars. The cause of this defect is the 
greater strength of the tendon on one side of the tail 
than on the other. Two remedies have been proposed : 

The first method is to find the exact tendon whose 
contraction makes the deformity, and cut it off. This 
mode is a cruel one at best, and it is quite uncertain, 
as cutting too much or too little, or in the wrong place, 
will do nothing towards a remedy. Many a charla- 
tan would gladly undertake the operation. 

A wiser and better mode is to braid a small cord 
into the tail, and draw the tail tightly round on the 
opposite side from the way he carries it, and fasten it 
to a tightly buckled surcingle with a ring on the side, to 
which you will tie the tail. By this means you stretch 
the tendon or cord upon one side, and give the 
other, on the opposite side, a chance to contract. The 
cord released from tension, and shortened upon itself 
by the relaxation, will soon naturally and sufficiently 
contract. If the tail is kept in that position for a week 
or ten days, it will always after hang as it should 



CHAPTER XXI. 

KICKING IN THE STALL. 

In the first place fasten a surcingle around him 
tightly. If he kicks with but one foot, use the foot 
straps by placing one strap on the kicking foot and 
the other on the forward foot, directly in front of the 
former. Fasten a rope in one ring, passing it through 
the surcingle and tie to the other one, drawing it 
tight. In this way, every time he kicks he throws his 
forward foot from under himself. If he kicks with 
both feet, place the rope in the same manner, connect- 
ing all four of his feet. It will soon put an end to 
kicking. This remedy makes it impossible to con- 
tinue the habit of kicking; and a discontinued habit is 
soon forgotten. This method will also cure the horse 
of kicking at a person who enters the stable, or kick- 
ing at another horse. The animal should be tested 
well before being pronounced cured of the habit. 

Some have tied weights to the legs, which fly back 
and hurt the legs; others put prickly ash against the 
posts that are kicked ; others connect the heel with the 
lower jaw by a rope. All these methods are liable to 
serious objection. The method given above is easy, 
effectual and reasonable. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE ECLIPSE HALTER. 

This halter is made of a strap of heavy leather, 
thirty-six inches long and one-and-a-quarter inches in 
width. Two rings are used: the first is a one-and-a 
half-inch " D " ring, and it is set upon the strap cross- 
wise, six inches from the buckle. The other, a com- 
mon ring, is placed lengthwise with the strap, about 
one-half inch from the first ring. The strap is 
doubled from the buckle to the second ring'. 

In fastening the rings in place, put two rivets be- 
tween the rings, and four on the outside of each. 

For the ring which is placed lengthwise, a large 
rivet can be placed between the thickness of the 
leather for it to work upon, such as can be seen on all 
five-ringed halters. 

Tie an end of a half-inch cotton rope, twenty feet 
long, to the "D" ring. Hold the buckle of the strap 
in the right hand, and pass the other end of the rope 
through the other ring from the right to the left hand. 
Buckle the strap on the colt so that the rings come 
under the neck and the buckle on the right side. 
Then place that part of the rope that is between the 
rings over his nose. 

Held by this halter a horse will stand for quite a 
severe surgical operation, and also while being shod. 

The Eclipse is the best instrument in use for mak- 
ing an untamed colt docile and leadable. I have gone 




No. 12. — The Eclipse Halter. 



THE ECLIPSE HALTER. 63 

to the country to bring to town a wild colt that had 
never been bridled or approached for the purpose, 
and in half an hour after first seeing him, I have had 
him following the halter anywhere. I have then got 
in my buggy and with the rope in my hand, led him 
to town without any inconvenience. 

If a horse resists bridling, put on the Eclipse hal- 
ter and give one or two quick, energetic jerks with it, 
and then try and bridle him again. In a short time 
you will bridle him easily and without any trouble 
whatever. 

With a halter of this kind you can soon have a wild 
colt ready to follow you anywhere. While this halter 
is strong and resistless it is not cruel. It is adapted 
to the nature of the average colt. As a writer in the 
Horseman says : "He is naturally very desirous of do- 
ing to the best of his ability whatever he understands 
his master desires of him. But he is timid, disposed 
to be nervous and excitable, and when his nerves get 
the better of him his power of thinking and realizing 
what you want him to do becomes impaired tempor- 
arily. You should be able to see when he is so affec- 
ted, and to distinguish the indications of that condition 
from those of vicious obstinacy or temper. It will do 
no good to whip him when he has an attack of the 
nerves. That will only make him worse. In fact 
that is the general effect of the whip. Soothe him, 
encourage him, let him see you, speak placidly and 
kindly to him, let him touch you with his nose as you 
do so, and he will soon be calm, intelligent and will- 
ing." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE BALKY HORSE. 

Tnere is much said about the cure of the balky- 
horse. If a colt balks it is the result of a mistake in 
his training. It is possible also to injure and abuse an 
under-fed or over-burdened horse till he loses heart, 
and he is never true again. For the time being he 
can be cured of it, but if he is allowed to rest for a few 
days he will fall into the vice again. If it is deemed 
worth the while to cure him, for a few days' work, try 
it. Put him alongside a steady, true horse. Take a 
half-inch rope about twenty-five feet long, and in the 
middle, wind in and out old cloth, to make for two 
feet or so of length, a strong solid rope, about two 
inches or more in diameter. Place the middle of this 
enlarged part under his tail; cross the other two parts 
over his back and carry one through each of the 
rings of the harness that hold up the neck-yoke, be- 
fore him. Then fasten the ends to the end of the 
tongue of the wagon. Have a stay chain behind the 
other horse. When fastening the rope be sure that 
the horses stand even. Then start them and they 
will both go. The balky horse must not be injured 
by the rope. It must be made so large as not to cut 
or bruise the skin. He will step up to his work and 
if he has no vacations, or holidays, in which to forget, 
he will never balk again. But let him rest, as in har- 
vest, or in winter, and he balks again all the same. 



THE BALKY HORSE. 6$ 

If a colt in training develops the balking habit it is 
by some foolishness in his handling, and nothing but 
instant and severe measures will save him. Put him. 
in single harness, in the poles. Make a whip with a 
strong stock eighteen inches in length, and for a lash 
take a harness tug split in two, about fifteen inches in 
length, tving or nailing the lash firmly to the stock. 
Then start him. If he goes, all right. If not, strike 
him over the face with the lash, avoiding the eyes. 
Strike on till he moves away. If he throws himself, 
keep on till he gets up and goes on. Then if not 
inclined to stop himself, stop him soon, and after rest- 
ing a little start him again. 

After working with him at the poles in this way for 
a while, put him in a breaking cart and get in to drive. 
If he will not go at all, give him more of the same 
treatment, or, if he will only go when you are on the 
ground, and not when you are on the cart, apply the 
lash again till he will go. If he refuses to go when 
you are on the cart, but offers to go when he hears 
you get off, do not let him then, but give him more of 
the lash over the face and ears. Then, if he will go, 
let him, and you get on the cart. If he is struck on 
the body or on the legs he will stand and stubbornly 
resist, apparently not knowing that he is to move. 
But surprised and pained at the assault on his face» 
where he is so tender, he will make a start, and an} r 
start being made, he is likely to go on. Then if he 
stops again make a noise as if you were getting off 
the cart, and if he will go, all right. 

There can be no objection to the exhaustion of all 
milder measures before resorting to this. If any milder 

5 



66 HORSE EDUCATION. 

method can be found, so much the better. There 
would be no need for this, if it were not for the mis- 
takes of persons who have taught the vice of balking, 
instead of training to better habits. A horse is like a 
man, in preferring to be struck anywhere except in the 
face. One blow in the face counts for more than a 
hundred on the body or legs in scaring him out of any- 
thing. I rarely strike a horse. I never carry a whip 
except for the two bad habits of balking and kicking. 
In training a vice of any kind out of a horse it is not 
wise to give up till one succeeds. It may not be done 
in one day, nor in a week. Patient, reasonable work 
will surely succeed in the end. 

It is not wise to become angry even if you have to 
beat him. If you allow yourself to become angry you 
are unfit for such work as training a horse. 

I have hesitated about giving my experience in the 
use of the whip on a horse. What I say here must 
not be taken for license for any needless severity; not 
one unnecessary stroke. I have never ha,d the slight- 
est trouble in avoiding the balky habit in colts whose 
training I began myself. The severity is only neces- 
sary to correct the errors of men who were ignorant 
of their business. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE BOLTING HORSE. 

A young horse is liable to form the habit of bolting 
down some lane, or bolting into the road to the barn, 
in spite of all his driver can do. If permitted to form 
this habit when young, he will take the street that 
leads home whenever he is so inclined. It is singular 
that he never bolts equally to both sides, but only to 
the one to which he first starts with the habit. He 
will not turn to either the right or left, according to 
the way in which he is going, but he will shoot down 
only to the right, or only to the left. It is a very in- 
convenient habit and may result in damage. 

The most direct remedy, and always effectual, is to 
put on him the surcingle and ropes, and guide him 
past the bolting corner till he does not regard it. If 
he offers to turn, take him down with the ropes and let 
him know that he is powerless whenever he turns that 
way. Then hitch him in the cart, with the ropes upon 
him, and drive him past the bolting corner, and let 
him lose his feet from under him unless he yields 
promptly to the lines. Touch him with the whip 
sharply to keep his attention to his restraints. He 
will not need more than three or four exercises like 
this till he gets entirely out of the habit of bolting. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE HORSE HANGING OUT HIS TONGUE. 

A horse will sometimes form the habit of carrying 
his tongue outside of his mouth, on one side or the 
other, under the bit, or above it. This he does only 
when he is bridled, and generally only when he is 
driven. It is no sign of weariness, or exhaustion, or 
thirst; it is a meaningless and unsightly habit. When 
once the habit is fixed, no one will willingly buy or use 
such a horse. 

The trouble is not difficult to remedy. Take a strip 
of cotton cloth about two inches wide, and long enough 
to tie under his jaw. With your knife cut a slit in the 
cloth large enough to slip his tongue through. Put his 
tongue through this, and draw his tongue under the 
bit, and tie the strip of cloth tightly under his jaw. 
Do this eveiy time you drive him till you are sure 
he has given up the habit. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ABOUT STARTING IN THE BUGGY UNBIDDEN. 

Buckle the forward feet together with a strap before 
you put on the harness, and let him plunge about until 
he gets accustomed to the restraint. After he is done 
fighting the strap, unbuckle it, and harness him. If 
he is unruly, or at all vicious, put him to the cart for a 
lesson, or if he is quiet-spirited hitch him to the buggy 
at once, and buckle the strap on his feet again. Take 
up the lines as if to start, without speaking to him. If 
he starts to go, set him back with the lines, saying: 
"Whoa, Sir." Then shake the buggy as if it were 
going, and if he offers to start set him back. Take 
up the lines and let them come down on him gently, 
and if he offers to start unbidden, set him back with 
the lines and a "Whoa, Sir." When you think he is 
ready to obey, and you see that he is quiet, take off 
the strap and let him go for some time. Again stop, 
alight, put on the strap again and go on as before, to 
test his understanding of the lesson. This is to be 
repeated till he can remember and obey. 

When you are ready to go, pull a little on one line, 
not always on the same side, and speak to him to go 
on, and he will soon understand it, and he will not 
start till he gets the sign. The habit of starting untold 
may cause a fall or a broken limb, or a ruuaway, and 
you cannot be too careful in teaching a young horse 
to be still until the driver is ready to go. You must 



70 HORSE EDUCATION. 

be careful not to let him break the rule that he has 
just learned. It is not his fault, but his trainer's, if he 
does not learn the lesson readily, and remember it 
while he lives. 

The principle that is involved in breaking the bad 
habit of the horse starting unbidden, pervades every 
part of the process of training. It is that the horse 
must absolutely have no will or discretion of his own. 
There is to be but one will and that is the will of the 
driver. It must be exercised wisely and for the good 
of the horse as well as for the safety of the owner. 
An unexpected start might cost a life, or a limb. The 
trainer should not leave this item of education to the 
last, nor deem it unimportant, but every day and ev- 
ery lesson should impress it on the memory of the 
colt. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

ELECTRICITY IN THE HORSE. 

There is good reason to believe that a spirited horse 
throws off considerable electricity. This everybody 
knows who has ever run his ringers over a horse's 
coat early on a frosty morning. We know that an 
electrical apparatus will generate or accumulate elec- 
tricity when a grindstone will not. So also there are 
some facts about a spirited horse imparting a vitalizing 
force to his driver, that are well known, but which 
are difficult of explanation. For example here are 
some of such facts: An invalid, well enough to drive 
is more helped by holding the lines of an energetic 
horse than by having another person drive ; the vitalizing 
force is felt more in driving after a trained and vigor- 
ous horse than after a colt; it is felt more in the morn- 
ing than in the evening, more before a storm than 
after. 

There is very little rousing of the nerves by a buggy 
ride except for one who holds the lines. Instead of 
asking at the livery for a quite horse for an invalid, 
we ought to ask for the most spirited animal in the 
stable. Then let the invalid hold the lines if he is 
possibly able. There is a thrill runs along from the 
horse's head to the driver, in case of the horse's sud- 
den fright, and the telegraphic news is recorded by the 
driver's nerves before the horse gives a start. " In like 
manner if the one driving is frightened the horse 



72 HORSE EDUCATION. 

learns it by the electrical current that runs along the 
lines, before he hears the tremulous tones of the 
timid driver. 

I wish to set the reader to thinking, and to asking 
questions. These suggestions are in the neighbor- 
hood of experiences, though they are not yet classified 
among accepted truths. Let a question or two point 
towards electricity. Why is it when you go out to 
drive on a fine morning, with your horse in fine spirit, 
that you soon feel exhilarated as if you had taken a 
glass of wine ? Why is it you cannot acquire the same 
elasticity of feeling by a ride in a street car, or behind 
a dull old horse, or behind a colt ? Whv is this exhil- 
aration felt chiefly by the one who holds the lines ? 
Would you feel it more with a copper wire running 
down the lines to your bare hand ? Would you feel 
the electric current more on a bright morning when, 
on running your hand over your horse's coat, the elec- 
tric sparks will shine and snap after your fingers ? 

Here is a line of inquiry well worth the study of the 
scientific horseman. It may result in our having elec- 
tric lines upon our harness, or it may make a buggy a 
sanitarium on wheels. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

TO PRESERVE THE HORSE'S LIFE. 

"For want of a nail the shoe was lost, and for want 
of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of a horse 
the man was lost." The advantages derived from 
good grooming are not generally understood. Many- 
people who exact plenty of hard work from their 
horses will, nevertheless, begrudge them careful 
grooming, apparently regarding that as merely a lux- 
ury, which can be spared just as well as extra fine 
clothes. This is a great mistake. Grooming does 
not necessarily mean plaiting the mane and shining up 
the hoofs; it means keeping the animal's hair and coat 
cleaned and well brushed. Good grooming will not 
only add to the animal's comfort, but to his healthful- 
ness. It is as essential in this respect as cleanliness 
and care are to children. Moreover, it tends to render 
the horse docile and to inspire in him affection for his 
master. Gentle handling is a great factor in securing 
a horse's good will, and nothing will enable a man to get 
the best work from his horse more than the animal's 
good will. Who that has had anything to do with 
horses needs to be reminded of how much greater 
efforts will be put forth by a good horse in response 
to his master's friendly voice, than in response to an 
angry tone or to the crack of the whip ? 

Perhaps we have here one of the causes of the fre- 
quent complaint that it is hard to find a man who can 



74 HORSE EDUCATION. 

take care of horses. The ability to care for horses as 
they should be cared for, is much more rare than the 
ability to be a good bricklayer or carpenter, or to do 
any other purely mechanical work. To succeed with 
horses a man must be ever watchful of them; he must 
get to know them and love them. Their health and 
comfort must be his constant care, and grooming must 
be a labor of love, and not a tiresome duty. Especial- 
ly do horses need care after a spell of hard work, 
and every humane master will at such a time wipe 
them dry of perspiration, taking off the harness, if pos- 
sible to do so, even if he has to put it on again immedi- 
ately. Let the legs, from the knees and hocks down, 
be well hand-rubbed, and, if fevered from over-driv- 
ing, they should be bandaged in wet cloths, to take 
away the heat. The best thing to clean a horse with 
is a corn-cob scrubbing-brush. It never can scratch 
his legs, as the curry-comb of tin does, while it does 
more work in the same time than curry-comb and 
brush put together. 

The habit of reining in horses very tightly finds less 
favor with many persons than it did. It is not easy to 
see in what way the habit originated. If a man has a 
load of anything to pull, he wishes to get his head as 
far forward as possible to pull with ease. But the 
horse is denied this. His head is reined back tightly, 
thereby making it much harder for him to pull the 
load. To our view, a horse looks better, and we 
know he feels better, when pursuing a natural, leisure- 
ly, swinging gait. It is as necessary for his head to 
oscillate in response to the motion of his body, as it is 
for a man's hands to do the same thing. A horse 



TO PRESERVE THE HORSE'S LIFE. 75 

allowed his head, will work easier and last longer than 
one on which a check is used. 

M. P. Cartledge, member of the Royal College of 
Veterinary Surgeons, urges the great necessity of 
allowing an unlimited supply of water to horses; and 
he alludes to the very mistaken notion among grooms 
and others having the control of horses, that water, 
as much as he likes, is injurious. While grooms and 
others drink without stint themselves, they profess to 
know when a horse has drunk sufficient, and so take 
away the pail before his natural wants are half satis- 
fied. Horses will not drink to excess if watered fre- 
quently, and in that case drinking does no harm. 

Bad driving will often fatally injure a horse in a few 
miles, while skillful driving would make the journey 
in less time and leave the horse as fresh as when he 
started. Drive slow when the animal is full of food 
and water; but after the muscles are limbered and the 
system emptied, increase the speed. Then check up 
and let the horse cool off before stopping, and there 
would be less danger of taking cold and of stiff mus- 
cles, and less necessity for rubbing down. Drive slow 
up hill and down, and make good time on level ground 
and on moderate descents. 

Never keep the same gait and speed for a long time, 
for a change of gait is equivalent to a rest. Never 
drive a horse without first making his acquaintance 
and securing his good will. Go to his head, speak 
kindly, pat him, look in his eyes. Whether you are a 
friend or foe, he will judge by your voice, your breath. 
Horses judge a man as quickly as a man does a horse. 
Feed and water abundantly at night after work and 



76 HORSE EDUCATION. 

the animal has had time to rest and cool off. Feed 
moderately in the morning or before work. Par- 
tisans and Arabs prepare their horses for hard drives 
by fasting rather than feasting. Horses are injured 
by hard driving on a full stomach. Never let a horse 
eat or drink much when he is hot from work. Study 
your horse, treat him according to his nature, make 
him your friend, and he will do better and safer ser- 
vice. This done for his first twelve years, he will live 
twice as long as he will if indifferently treated. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

KICKER, PULLER, RUNAWAY, BALKER OR WILD 

If you have a colt that has a vice, the only way to 
help him to get rid of it is to take him when he is 
practicing it. What you want to persuade him to do 
is to quit his meanness. If he is a kicker you are to 
bring about the conditions that make him kick, and 
you are to show him that he cannot do it. Do not 
make a silent agreement that he is to be good and 
gentle. Give him occasion. Make him kick. Let 
him understand that you are controlling the kicking 
business and the sooner he quits it the better. In 
chapter xiil, the reader will see how a kicker can be 
outwitted, till he will as soon undertake to fly. 

If halter-pulling is the vice, put him in a halter, as 
directed in chapter v, and make him try it. Let him 
keep up the effort; make him feel that it is useless, for 
it cannot be done. He will then soon forget to try. 

But he is a runaway. Then let him run. Make 
him run. Treat him to chapter xv. Let your 
science meet him in every act, and he will strike a run 
as reluctantly as he will run through a fire. 

If he is a balker, give him no occasion to balk. 
Never let him do it. Do not let him see a chance. 
Do not let him know it can be done, and he will soon 
be out of danger of the habit. 

Do not expect to put an old horse's head on a wild 
colt. Give him a chance to learn, the same as you do a 



7# HORSE EDUCATION. 

boy in a business that is new to him. A German far- 
mer told the writer that he never allowed any non- 
sense with his colts. He said he always put the har- 
ness on the colt and hitched him alongside a team at 
the plow. He drove him along with the old horses 
among the corn stalks and let the chains strike him, so 
that he can learn the meaning of the horse words, and 
be used to the noises of the work, and be afraid of 
nothing. Before he stretches a chain he will know 
how to learn, and that is what some men do not know 
till they are fifty. 

Another farmer said, I never teach a colt anything 
till I go to plowing and then I set him to work. 
That is bad for his growth, and for his spirits, and he 
will make a stupid, dull horse. Let him learn his a, b, 
c's before you put him in the rule of three, and he will 
jkeep the freshness of his spirits down into old age. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

GAITING THE HORSE. 

There is no part of the trainer's work requiring 
more skill and attention than gaiting the colt. And 
no part of it is liable to receive so little attention as 
this, not because he does not know its importance, but 
because the owner only wishes the colt to be tamed, 
and then he hopes to do the gaiting himself, yet he 
rarely does it, and still more rarely does he know any- 
thing about it. If it should take an extra month for 
the trainer to gait the colt it will be time and money 
well expended. The gait of the horse will oftener 
sell him than his style, size or color. If bad habits of 
movement are once saddled on him it is hard to break 
them up. The gait of the horse is defined and formed 
in the first few times that he walks away in the har- 
ness. No doubt he feels awkward, for his movements 
prove it. If his gait is left to accident it will most 
likely be a bad one, and it will greatly lower his value 
and abate the comfort of his owner, or driver. But 
when you shall have gaited him well, you have im- 
proved his appearance, and his serviceableness, and 
you have doubled his value. 

The horse, as we know him, has four natural move- 
ments of his limbs, viz : walking, pacing, trotting and 
galloping. In the first he raises his feet a little above 
the ground, lifting one forefoot and the hindfoot of 
the opposite side. Any horse can be trained to have 



80 HORSE EDUCATION. 

a smart walk, both light and sure. He should be 
practiced with walking till his step is free, even, regu- 
lar and strong. His walk should have a litheness in it 
which shows that every joint is free and that his move- 
ments are a pleasure to himself. He should be urged 
into a cheerful walk in which every motion he makes, 
bends and plays all his joints, as of the shoulders, 
knees and feet. 

A good walk is the foundation of excellence of gait. 
A young horse is apt to fall into the habit of a slow, 
fretful walk. While the horse beside him is walking 
about as slowly as a horse can move, the colt of un- 
formed habits has a most annoying, little, chopping 
trot, that is still more slow. The method of treatment 
should be radical. Put on him the surcingle and foot 
straps. Let him understand he is to walk ahead, and 
if he will not, pull up on the rope gradually and that 
will set him into a walk. His mincing gait will soon 
leave him. Make him a good walker, free, easy and 
strong. Give him time to form the habit of graceful 
walking, and then quicken the step into a supple trot, 
and then into a spirited trot. 

When he has acquired a good walk it can be quick- 
ened into a trot. This may be the flexible, easv trot 
in which every muscle is at easy play, or it may be the 
rapid trot in which the horse gathers up all his strength 
and distributes it equally through all of his joints. 
Whichever of these trots he enters upon he should be 
kept at it till he evidently acquires the habit of it. 
You may know that he is at his best, both in vigor 
and speed, when, with a little urging, he springs into 
a gallop. The tracks on the ground, as left by a 



GAITING THE HORSE. 8 1 

horse, are always exactly alike as to position, whether 
walking, trotting, or galloping, and beginning at any 
one you count five to make what is called a stride. The 
action of a horse's feet is just the same in a walk as in a 
trot, the only difference being that the motions in the 
latter are more quick. Then to make an easy, free, 
rapid, graceful trotter he must first be a good walker. 
The trot should be firm, quick, even paced and strong, 
the fore legs pushed rapidly by the hind ones. If trained 
properly the trotting horse will of himself carry his 
head high and keep his body straight and steady. If 
the haunches rise and fall alternately, or if the crupper 
rocks from side to side, the horse is too weak for rapid 
motion. The gallop is the resort when the horse tries 
to make speed. 

The pace is not desirable in harness, but it is often 
desirable to have a pacing horse for the saddle. His 
gait is easy to the rider for a short journey, and he is 
generally desired by ladies, because when he ambles 
at a gait anywhere between a walk and a canter he is 
easier paced than a trotter. His step differs from that 
of all other gaits in this, that he is a side-wheeler. He 
lifts the two feet on one side at the same instant, and 
then alternating, lifts the two feet on the other side. 
Some colts take to this style naturally, some can only 
trot, lifting one fore foot and the hind foot of the oppo- 
site side at the same time. Others are able naturally, 
to trot or pace, and are called double gaited, a style 
very unsatisfactory and undesirable. It is not difficult 
to teach a trotter to pace, or a pacer to trot. It has 
often occurred that a pacer has reached great distinc- 
tion in speed, and then, having been trained to trot, he 

6 



82 HORSE EDUCATION. 

has excelled as a trotter. The fastest flight over a 
mile ever made has been done by a pacer, as West- 
mont, by Almont, with running mate Firebrand, to 
road wagon, at Chicago, made one mile in 2:01^. 
Johnston, g., paced in harness one mile in 2:06, while 
the fastest mile ever trotted was by Maud S., at Lex- 
ington, Kentucky, 1884, in 2:08^. 

The English method of making a trotter into a pac- 
er, is to ride with a severe curb bit and spurs. In this 
country he is urged out of a walk into the amble and 
the step is defined by hoppling the feet, tying together 
the two on the right and then the two on the left, and 
either riding or driving him. He soon acquires speed 
while wearing hopples made for the purpose, and a 
touch of the reins will be enough to remind him if he 
forgets to put his best foot foremost. 

For a great many purposes a fast walker is desirable, 
and a horse that can walk five, or even four miles, is 
sometimes in great demand. Ladies and invalids want 
the pace and canter, drivers want the trot. The gal- 
lop is of rare use in this country beyond the actual 
trial of speed, and some of the uses of the army. If 
you want to have a well-gaited horse, commence his 
training with the walk, for that is the foundation o£ 
gait. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE OVER-DRAW CHECK. 

The over-draw check is modern. Most horses 
that are well up in years never wore one in their 
youth. Without this appliance, when the driver 
draws hard on the lines, he draws the horse's chin up 
to his breast. If the horse is mischievous, or wants 
to run, he can take the bit in his grinders and go. 
Holding the horse's chin up to his breast prevents 
full breaths, and it injures all the respiratory organs. 
But checking high with the over-draw check carries 
the head so high as to be painful. There is an im- 
pression that the horse will step farther if his head is 
drawn to the highest point. Accordingly this meth- 
od is sometimes carried to such an extent that the an- 
imal is in terrible torture. Sometimes on the trotting 
track a horse is checked so high that you can stand 
behind him and see the star in his face. 

Many men check their horses without reason, and 
really subject themselves to arrest for cruelty to ani- 
mals. 

One who desires to make the most of his horse, 
will ascertain at what point the animal can carry his 
head so as to give him the best appearance consistent 
with safety, speed and comfort, and he will not check 
him one-eighth of an inch higher. Now that the 
checking is reasonable and carries the head of the 
colt well up, see what you have secured. First, 



84 HORSE EDUCATION. 

you will have better control of him if he should under- 
take to kick, for he must lower his head before he can 
make much of an effort. Second, he will rarely run 
away, for he can not take the bit in his teeth, and the 
bit will press just where it will control him the most 
easily. Third, it will put him in his best attitude, 
and he will show every inch of the horse that he is. 
Fourth, he will be less likely to scare at objects by 
the roadside. He will be above them. 

With all these advantages it must be remembered 
that unless a colt has been well checked up from the 
first, he will probably never adjust himself to it, ex- 
cept as to a great cruelty. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

HOW MUCH INTELLECT HAS A HORSE? 

It is a problem for the philosopher rather than for a 
book on horses, to give the measure of a horse's mind, 
for everybody knows that he has a mind of some 
measure or other. One who undertakes to train a 
horse, or even to feed him, ought to have some idea as to 
whether the horse or the driver knows the most about 
the business in hand. One makes but little progress 
in educating a horse till he knows what faculties the 
horse has with which to acquire his education. 

It is certain he has perception, and that he gains 
ideas through the eyes, ears, and nose. From being 
afraid of nothing he comes to be afraid of everything, 
and he has need to learn that nothing that he sees will 
hurt him. He is capable of learning the meaning of 
many hundreds of words; and the nerves of taste and 
of smell are so delicate that they can teach the sense 
of sight, for he learns not to even look at objects of 
unpleasant taste, or odor. 

He has memory. He remembers persons and pla- 
ces. He soons learns which is his own stall. He re- 
calls the time of day for his feed and calls out, or 
stamps, or paws, if it is late coming. He remembers 
roads and the barns where he has been fed, and the 
corners at which he has turned. If the boys have for 
mischief taught him to jump fences, he will, go from 
the poor pasture to the best one on the farm. All edu- 



86 HORSE EDUCATION. 

cation of the horse is built on the faculty of memory. 
After we have told him a thing as often as we have to 
tell a new thing to a boy of fifteen, we expect him to 
remember it, and he generally does. 

He has a limited degree of the power of reason. 
The colt brought up with the use of a lariat can reason 
this way/ I must not put my foot over that cord, or if 
I do I must take it back again, or I will hurt myself. 
He can judge of distance and measure the ground 
for a leap before he lifts his feet. A lady in England 
was riding a fine thoroughbred, after the hounds, 
with a large company. The fox was seen close at 
hand on the other side of a canal that was too wide 
for jumping. A canal boat chanced to be passing, and 
the horse without hesitation, or guidance, leapt upon 
the boat in the mid water, and made the other half of 
the way at the next bound, and went in among the 
hounds. 

The horse understands the language of signs as well 
as that of the voice. If brought up on an American 
farm he understands English words, but if need be he 
very soon learns German, French, or Italian. 

There is a great deal of union of feeling and sym- 
pathy between an intelligent horse and a considerate 
owner. If an accident should occur an intelligent 
horse knows what to do about as well as his driver. 
If the master has a quiet spirit, so has the horse. 
If the master fumes and blusters or gets afraid, the 
horse becomes restive, and he is afraid when he is 
controlled by such a man, for he sees more danger 
than he can tell. A horse that has had a good educa- 
tion is not a brute; he is man's most useful animal ser- 



HOW MUCH INTELLECT HAS A HORSE? 87 

vant. What a shame it is to let so noble a creature 
come up in ignorance. An animal of such intelligence 
ought to be treated in a reasonable way. When he is first 
harnessed he ought not to be put to draw a plow or a 
heavy wagon. His muscles and tendons, never under 
tension before, become painful and cause a suffering 
that is distressing to him. He droops, can hardly 
move, loses 'all his coltish elasticity, and his driver 
thinks it is because he is acquiring sense. It is really 
because he is too tired and sore to move. The reader 
can imagine how he would feel himself if, until he 
reached man's full size, he had never made any more 
exertion than to take his food, he should suddenly be 
set to work alongside a strong, hard-muscled man and 
he made to keep up. 

What would a dude say to you, if on coming out 
from the city to you he should be set to carrying rails 
on his shoulder and keep up with an old rail splitter? 
or what if you should set him to digging ditches, and 
to keep up with an old ditcher? If a dude ever kicked 
he would kick then. So would the colt if he had no 
more sense than his owner had intelligence. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

A LADY ON HORSEBACK. 

No other than a most finely trained saddle horse 
should be offered for her first few lessons on horse- 
back. A lady's riding on horseback is not an art; it 
is the science of drawing willing, obedience out of a 
well trained horse. The suggestions of this chapter 
are not for one who seeks an equestrian accomplish- 
ment, but for the help of a lady or a child just now 
learning to sit safely in a side-saddle, while the horse 
goes on at a gait that is pleasurable to the rider. Ac- 
cording as the person is a child or a large person so the 
saddle should be small or usual size, and it should be set 
a little back and be well fastened on. If she rides often 
it is best always to have the same horse, and the ani- 
mal should be so tractable that the smallest flaxen 
twine would guide or hold him. Every lady's horse 
should do all his paces well. When she goes to mount 
she should take with her a lump of sugar, an apple, 
or a carrot, to give him with many caressive touches 
and tones of kindness. 

She will stand close to the horse and place her right 
hand on the pommel of the saddle, and with her left 
foot in the right hand of her attendant and her left 
hand upon his shoulder, she will rise naturally and 
gracefully to her seat in the center of the saddle. The 
reins evenly adjusted, will be put in her left hand with 
the palm down and the whip in her right; the left knee 



A LADY ON HORSEBACK. 89 

will rest easily against the saddle, and the left foot in 
the stirrup with the heel lower than the toes, the left 
hand will rest on nothing and yet be at rest, and the 
left elbow will be on a line from the shoulder to the 
hand that grasps the reins. The whip-hand — the 
right — will be held to the front, not down, nor back, and 
if the horse needs the whip, a thing entirely unlikely, he 
must have it straight down the shoulder, remembering 
the saying that a good rider never needs it and a kind 
one never uses it. The riding habit must not be 
pinned underfoot. Before starting she must sit up 
erect and keep that attitude; hold the reins securely 
but gently, and not hard, and they must not be used to 
help her keep her seat. She must study to acquire a 
graceful balance of person, that will not bound out of 
place by any movement of the horse. 

Now, ready for a start, if the child or lady has a 
friend skillful in the side saddle and wise, she will 
repeat to the learner her parting advice: "Do not 
lean forward. Cultivate in the saddle the graceful 
attitudes of the parlor. Do not take a distant clasp of 
the bridle and then lean toward it. Keep the horse 
under the rider's will and control every instant. Turn 
him around corners. Urge him to do his best walk- 
ing. The first exercise should only last an hour and 
have neither a trot nor a gallop. Be content to take 
the alphabet first. At leaving the saddle, have a little 
reward ready for the horse, a lump of sugar, or an 
apple, or a carrot, and talk to him in kindly tones and 
with caressive touches of the hand on his neck and 
head and nose, which he will remember and repay in 
service." 



go HORSE EDUCATION. 

The next hour of riding should be again a rapid 
walk with frequent turning of corners. This will 
teach the horse whose will it is that controls his 
movements. In later lessons the horse may trot. The 
trotting should continue long enough to acquire perfect 
ease and grace of posture. After this is done well the 
horse may canter. Here will come back a tendency 
to lean forward, but it must not be allowed. If a horse 
is trained for a lady's riding at all he will, in a canter, 
throw his right foot first. The attitude on the saddle 
makes this the easiest for the rider. If he breaks in 
with the left foot first, stop him at once and start him 
again. The rider will soon learn to tell him by a 
twitch of the bridle how to put his best foot foremost. 
After being assured of her position, and she and the 
horse understand each other, she can change him from 
the left foot canter to the right without stopping hfrn. 

If the horse should rear, she is to somewhat loosen 
the reins, pass the whip to her left hand and double up 
her fist and strike him with it between the ears. 
Show no fear. If he comes up again hit him again. 
If you turn round and go home he will rear next time 
when he wants to go home, but if you keep him down 
by strokes between his ears, and keep him going, he 
will most likely never rear again. At the same time 
you must be very sure that there is nothing the matter 
with the saddle. Look to this well before starting. 

It is a great mistake to dismount when the horse 
rears. Give him the reins so that he can go on if he 
will. A stroke no stronger than with a resolute lady's 
fist on top of his head is a stunner, and will generally 
bring him to terms. 



A LADY ON HORSEBACK. 91 

A gentleman and lady were riding in England when 
the horse reared and he told her to slip off. She did 
not, but struck the horse on the head. The horse came 
up again and she saw his feet pawing above her head. 
The gentleman said," Let yourself drop from the sad- 
dle, I always do." But she dealt the horse another 
blow that brought him down and he never needed 
another. 

As to kicking, no horse can do this unless he is 
allowed to throw his head down. A horse generally 
gives notice when he is going to kick by the waj' he 
frisks his head and sets his ears. A gentle, steady 
pull on the reins will set his head too high to allow of 
any kicking. 

It is not only ungallant, but dangerous, to give a 
lady a horse that is any other than perfectly safe and 
well trained. Neither should she take risks of chang- 
ing her saddle horse. Her attendant should not trust 
to the groom to see that the saddle girth is strong and 
tight, and that the bit and the reins are all that they 
should be. A lady* who rides, ought herself to be- 
come a judge of her outfit, and test it before starting. 

A lady needs presence of mind and security of posi- 
tion if the horse should rear or kick. This fact shows 
the wisdom of the first suggestion to practice thor- 
oughly in the first lesson. If any lady or child will 
study thoroughly these hints, and practice carefully, 
she will excel as a skillful and graceful equestrian. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

WHY NOT USE THE SADDLE HORSE? 

The American Agriculturist asks why the farmers 
do not ride more on horseback. And we ask, why do 
not young people promote health, gracefulness and 
pleasure, at the same time, by horseback amusements? 
It is strange that a people descended directly from the 
English, whose lives may almost be said to be passed 
in the saddle, should have so entirely abandoned this 
healthful and convenient means of locomotion. It is 
very rare to find, on an ordinary farm, a saddle and 
bridle suited for better work than the plowing of corn; 
and to find a thoroughly good saddle, one easy for the 
horse and for the rider, is almost impossible. • 

Perhaps one reason why there is not a more active 
general demand for really good saddle horses in this 
country is, because every effort to obtain such an 
animal is pretty sure to result in disappointment. The 
article does not, in reality, exist in this country, except 
in such rare cases as not to form an important excep- 
tion to the general rule. The saddle horse should be 
lithe, short-backed, strong-loined, long-necked, free in 
his action, and perfect in his temper. Such an animal 
is susceptible of any amount of training that an ama- 
teur rider may choose to give him ; but, in the furore 
for trotting horses that rages throughout the whole 
country, where almost every point that is desirable for 
the saddle is disregarded, and attention is wholly given 



WHY NOT USE THE SADDLE HORSE? 93 

to the making of time by mere propulsive power, which 
is almost the least desirable thing for saddle use, it 
seems quite hopeless to look for the breeding of the 
desired animal, and the result that we have long hoped 
for must be sought by slow and easy stages, and 
through a stimulus which can be secured in no other 
way so well as by the adoption of horseback riding by 
farmers, and their sons and daughters. In going about 
the farm, in going to the post-office, in paying visits, 
and in all journeying where heavy articles are not to 
be carried, the saddle horse ought to be used here, as 
he is in nearly all other countries of the world; and if 
there is any class of the community who should use 
him regularly, and should as a matter of pride, know 
how to use him thoroughly well, how to ride strongly, 
gracefully, and securely, it should be the robust young 
farmers of the country. 

In England, where it is estimated that during the 
hunting season a hundred thousand people ride daily 
to fox hounds, fully one-half the number being farmers, 
who go out to enjoy the sport or to practice their sale 
horses, there is, of course, a more active demand than 
can be expected in this country, at least for a very 
long time; but, even at this day, in the New York 
market, a perfect saddle horse, nearly thoroughbred, 
perfectly bitted and broken, and in all respects suited 
for the use of a lady or gentleman, may be readily sold 
for from $2,000 to $3,000. And when we consider 
the facts that the animal belongs to a race that arrives 
at early maturity, while his whole training may be 
incidental to the doing of errands and the necessary 
recreation of the younger members of the farmer's 



94 HORSE EDUCATION. 

family, it seems that the opportunity for a combination 
of pleasure and profit should be enough to induce the 
giving of greater attention to the saddle horse. 

In some countries there are livery stables with hun- 
dreds of saddle horses, many of them very superior 
animals, and trained so as to know a great deal more 
about saddle horse duties than does the average young 
man in America. There can be no doubt of the ben- 
efit of health that there is in an early morning, or an 
early evening, gallop. There is both fortune and 
fame before the young farmer who has taste and 
opportunity to make and to meet the rising market for 
finely trained saddle horses. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

THE FUTURE OF HORSE RAISING. 

Mr. Henry Stewart, in the New York Times, has 
recently given some very telling facts in reference to 
the comparative values of horses, mules, and cattle. 
From this authority we learn : Whereas cattle at 3 
years old average a value of $21, and cows of the same 
age $27, 3-year-old horses are worth $71, and mules 
of the same age about $80. All farmers know that 
this relative difference in value exists, but it is doubt- 
ful if they give much consideration to the fact. From 
close figuring it is found that a fairly good ordinary 
colt can be reared the first year for $25, the second 
year for the same, and the third year for $30 — in all 
$80. At that age the animal may be completely 
trained to work, and if he is sold for more than $160, 
the profit is 100 per cent on each year's cost. A 3- 
year-old cow or steer cannot be reared for much less 
and would sell for about $40 to $60 at present prices. 
If the cost of rearing were but half this there would 
be far less profit in the animal. It is needless to com- 
ment upon this statement, for no doubt it will be 
accepted as the plain, unvarnished truth. But we may 
be pardoned for saying a few words as to the future 
prospect for a regular business of breeding horses up- 
on farms. It is a special business, and it may be 
feared that the supply may overrun the demand if a 
large number of farmers should go into it. This, 



$6 HORSE EDUCATION. 

however, is altogether improbable and, so far as experi- 
ence of the past goes, wholly impossible. It takes 
three years to rear a horse for work. Under our 
present high-pressure system a large number of horses, 
are worn out in three years. There are about 40,000 
horses in the car stables of New York city alone, 
which require to be replaced every three years. We 
doubt very much if this number is not too small, and 
this is only to replace the present supply and has no 
reference to the enormous growth of business, and 
horses which are not worked so hard and have 
a longer life. This is but a drop in the bucket as com- 
pared with the needs of the whole country. Every 
railroad built, and every additional train of freight cars 
put on existing roads, call for more horses at each sta- 
tion. The demand is insatiable. Thousands of far- 
mers never do, and never will, rear their own horses, 
and all these are eager purchasers of fresh stock. A 
neighbor who recently bought a good horse for $275. 
said it was the third in eight years; this is an outlay of 
more than $100 yearly for horseflesh, and it is merely 
a sample of what is doing constantly every day in the 
year all over the country. Moreover, a change in the 
habits of the American people is impending. Riding 
is being found a cheaper way of preserving health than 
paying doctors and buying drugs. The saddle is 
becoming popular and American ladies are adopting" 
the more athletic and healthful habits of their English 
sisters, and a saddle horse is kept in the suburban 
home where it was never thought of before. This 
pleasing recreation will become popular and will stay 
so. Already there is a call for trained saddle horses 



THE FUTURE OF HORSE RAISING. 97 

far ahead of the supply, and it is only the beginning of 
it. There never was yet known in history a surplus 
of horses, and there never will be. Horses are the 
most profitable of farm stock to the breeder, and with 
the demand in sight, and the plain scarcity of these 
animals, and the profit of them, there is certainly no 
more remunerative, easy, and pleasant business for the 
farmer, who has the will and the tact for it, than this 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

TEACHING A HORSE TRICKS. 

The horse was never made for a juggler. It seems 
incongruous to teach tricks to an animal that is, in his 
nature, so honest and so serious. You can depend on 
his speed, and on his strength any time, but it is a fraud 
on him to ask him to help you to deceive anybody. 
All horse tricks depend chiefly on one line quality that 
he usually displays, viz: exact obedience. The cuteness 
of the trick never enters his head. He knows what it 
is to be obedient without knowing why, and he can 
learn to obey orders about almost anything without 
knowing why. He can remember also where and 
when to expect his food. The one who teaches tricks 
to a horse first commands him, and then rewards him. 
It makes a horse seem to be wise when he appears to 
obey a command to do something that is cute for a 
horse. He seems to understand what you say to him, 
though really he does not. He is either blindly obey- 
ing your command, or else he remembers that the 
chance has come to get something good to eat. His 
feats in picking up gloves and pocket handkerchiefs, 
and even pulling triggers, orginate in efforts to find 
oats or apples. 

A new circus horse was once trained, on an emerg- 
ency, for a show, with only four days of schooling. 
Boys who handle colts that belong to them, soon teach 
them to do things apparently wise, as for example, the 



TEACHING A HORSE TRICKS. 99 

boy will tell the horse to stretch out his feet and rest 
himself. " Stretch " is the only word the colt remem- 
bers. After being often tapped gently on his forward 
heels, and told to " stretch " and after getting a nice 
bite to eat, he comes to obey without being touched. 
By repeatedly asking his colt to shake hands, and at 
first pulling up the foot with a strap, and petting the 
colt, and giving him a few grains of corn, or an apple 
every time, the boy will find that the colt will politely 
extend his foot when asked to shake hands. As the 
right foot is the only one ever touched or asked for, it 
will be the only foot offered. It makes a horse look 
very sociable and friendly to hold out his right foot for 
a salutation, and he is, just like his owner, liable to get 
credit for more intelligence than he possesses. 

You can just as easily teach him to make a bow. 
Take a pin in your right hand, standing near enough 
to his breast to touch him. With the pin touch him 
lightly, like the pricking of a fly. Instinctively he 
throws the lower part of his head downward to re- 
lieve himself of the supposed fly. This must be ac- 
cepted and rewarded at once as his bow, or as his re- 
ply of yes, whichever you may have asked for. This 
must be repeated till he will bring down his head for 
seeing your hand move toward him. Or, you may 
from the beginning give him the signal by raising your 
left hand. Any sign agreed upon between you and 
the horse will do. 

Just as readily he can be taught to say no, by prick- 
ing him with a pin in the withers. To drive away the 
supposed fly he will shake his head. Each attempted 
obedience must be rewarded with caresses or with 



IOO HORSE EDUCATION. 

some dainty bite. Before long he will shake his head 
to say no, at each motion of your hand towards his 
withers, without waiting to feel the pin. You can soon 
train your colt in these ways to stretch, to shake hands 
when you come to him, and make a bow to you as you 
begin to talk to him, and alternately to say yes and no 
in quite a conversation. 

It is a little more difficult to teach a horse to lie 
down. It is always more easy to teach a colt to do 
this, for he is less suspicious, and he is easier to handle 
than is a horse. The near fore leg is easily disabled 
by being tied or strapped up to the arm; then take a 
small strap and tie it around the right fore foot below 
the pastern. Then pulling quickly on the bridle, as he 
obeys it, you take up his right foot by pulling on the 
strap over his back. This carries him to his knees, 
where you hold him a little while, caressing him and 
talking kindly to him. If he offers to rise, draw 
promptly on the bridle and on the strap, and he will un- 
wittingly obey you as you say, "Lie down, sir." Hold 
him down a while, talking to him and caressing him, till 
he loses his aversion to the posture. This lesson must 
be repeated often. After a while the right hand strap 
only need be used, then he will surrender by only tak- 
ing up his foot, and telling him what to do. Then with 
practice he will obey the word; afterwards he will 
obey a motion of the hand. This is a severe lesson. 
It puts the colt in unnatural attitudes, and it is tiresome 
to him, and it is complicated, but if the trainer is pa- 
tient, and firm, and rewards the horse well with kind 
words and good things to eat, he will soon obey the 
order to lie down as easily as he does the call to his 



TEACHING A HORSE TRICKS. IOI 

dinner. 

A horse seems to do a cute thing when he sits up 
like a dog and seems to enjoy it, with a long face, while 
everybody laughs. It is not a hard thing to teach him 
to do. You must first notice the natural manner of a 
horse getting square on his feet from the posture of 
lying on the ground. When he is half way up it is not 
hard to stop him and have him stand, the front end 
fully up, and the other not yet moved from the ground. 
When he is quietly lying down, take your place be- 
hind him, with the bridle reins in your hand and the 
the foot of a strong man planted on his tail. As he will 
spring up and straighten his front legs out as you call 
out, " Sit up, sir! " you tighten the rein suddenly 
and he will hold himself there. Now keep him still a 
very little while, talking appeasingly to him, and tell 
him again to get up, which he will very promptly do. 
This must be done again and again, always saying 
distinctly, "Sit up, sir!" when that is what you mean, 
and always fondling him and giving him something 
nice to eat. There is no difficulty in inducing a colt, 
or a young horse, to go through these lessons. It can 
be done for an older and heavier animal as well, but 
with some more care and patience. 

These simple methods of teaching the horse cunning- 
tricks are enough to show that almost anything may 
be taught to a young horse. It shows also that the 
best method is kindness; and that by as much as you 
make him obedient to your voice, by so much you 
make him a more safe and a more valuable family horse. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

TRICKS OF HORSE JOCKEYS. 

The reader of the Vicar of Wakefield will remem- 
ber how his poor, verdant son, Moses, fell among 
thieves when he took the horse to the fair and was 
himself taken in hand by the jockeys. If one goes to 
the dictionary it will seem a very innocent thing to be 
called a jockey, that is, a rider of horses, and yet it is 
commonly understood to mean a man who habitually 
trades in horses that are bad or indifferent. It is gen- 
erally believed that he can take any kind of diseased 
or crippled horse, and doctoring him for the occasion,, 
can cover, for the time, a fatal or incurable disease. 
If he has access to your sound horse for a few minutes, 
he can make him appear to be laboring under a chron- 
ic malady that makes him worthless. He can take his 
own horse, really lame in one leg, and by making him 
lame in the other, sell him for a quick stepper. 

The wisest man in the world, as to horse flesh, will 
be the gainer, in the long run, if he does not trade at 
all with a horse jockey, buying, selling, or swapping, 
If he does, he must expect to pay the expenses. 
Many a man is so fond of trading that he will barter 
away all the value he may have had in horse flesh 
when he began. A man, who could be named if nec- 
essary, traded often, for a year. He had two very 
good horses to begin with. At the end of the year he 
had two horses yet, but not worth half as much as 



TRICKS OF HORSE JOCKEYS. IO3 

the others, and he had paid out, in boot money, a little 
over $500. The moral of this is, a man had better 
know with whom he trades, so that he may know 
what kind of goods he may expect, and he may as well 
learn to know a horse at sight before he sets up to 
make a fortune by trading horses. 

A horse jockey, if he can get access to your horse, 
can make him appear to be badly foundered when 
there is nothing the matter with him. A horse can 
be made to seem permanently lame by running a hair 
from the tail, by the aid of a needle, through a certain 
muscle. By a miserable trick he can make the horse 
stand by his food and not take it till some one, who 
knows the art, comes and undoes it. He can take a 
cribbing horse, or a wind sucker, and stop all sign of 
the disease, for the time, by a certain operation on his 
mouth. A young countenance can be put on an old 
horse; a heaving horse can be made to appear perfect- 
ly well, and a true pulling horse can be made to balk, 
all by methods that injure a horse to do them. In 
fact, it has occurred that a man has sold his horse for 
utter unfitness for riding or driving, giving his charac- 
ter truthfully, and after the animal had been doctored 
and trimmed and painted, he has bought him again at 
ten times what he sold him for, under a written guar- 
antee that he could do a large number of, what was 
for him, impossible things. 

No reference is made here to the legitimate business 
of breeding, buying or selling horses. These occu- 
pations are usually in the hands of high minded and 
honorable men. They have nothing of character in 
common with the miserable frauds just described. 



104 HORSE EDUCATION. 

As a general rule you can only get an honest horse 
from an honest man. Give the sly and slippery horse 
trader a wide berth. In the language, very little al- 
tered, of Longfellow: 

I know a trader fair to see, 

Take care ! 
He can both false and friendly be, 

Beware ! Beware ! 

Trust him not, 
He is fooling thee ! 

He has two eyes, so soft and brown, 

Take care ! 
He gives a side-glance and looks down, 

Beware ! Beware ! 

Trust him not, 
He is fooling thee ! 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

HOW TO RUIN A COLT. 

Always allow the traces to keep the hair worn off 
the sides of the horse, and the hair of his tail to hano- 
in ropes. His mane may toss on either side, or both 
ways. The lines and traces, from being often tramped, 
become weak in places, and being liable to break any 
time, runaways will be frequent. The horse being 
left to cool in a cold wind, naturally coughs. There 
are draughts through the stable, and he has signs of 
rheumatism. The odors of the stable from the fer- 
menting manure-heap are ai all times stifling and the 
horse remains thin and weak, and liable to excessive 
sweating with the least exercise. Corn stalks are 
nourishing food, and cheapest when the horse gathers 
them himself. They are good enough in the mild 
weather of October, but in November they are scan- 
tier as the weather is frostier, till in December he 
will both starve and freeze looking for broken stalks 
under the snow. For the rest of the winter he can 
eat oats straw, and as his appetite is better when he 
runs out of doors, out he stays all winter. 

When he is off for a drive for ten miles, give him 
the first mile on a tight run, and keep up the tune 
with the whip for the next nine. With a tight check- 
rein his head will be very nearly parallel with his 
spine, and he will look spirited. On arriving, hot, 
hungry, thirsty and tired, cool him at a post without 



I06 HORSE EDUCATION. 

a blanket, without a let-up to his body or a let-down 
to his head. After two hours he returns the same 
way, and, as he is hot and jaded, let him rest at the 
fence before going to the ventilated stable. Feed oats 
in a manger with holes in it. In the spring he is too 
light for plowing or driving, and will be sold for a 
little beyond the value of the miserable hide, and the 
colt that takes his place meets the same fate. That is 
the way not to do it. This system even poorly car- 
ried out would ruin Rysdyk's Hambletonian, or Alex- 
ander's Abdallah, in twelve months. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE HARDEST CASE YET. 

Many horses are incurably injured by improper 
handling. It is not often that a horse is incorrigibly 
bad for want of intelligence, nor is it often on account 
of a vicious disposition. An intelligent horse made 
vicious by ill treatment is worse than a stupid one. 
Since a part of this book was in type I was called to 
see a fine young English shire colt. He was impor- 
ted at the age of one year; he is now three, of excel- 
lent form and would weigh 1,500. He is uncommon- 
ly intelligent, and is not naturally vicious, but by some 
mistake in handling he had become unmanageable. 
His attendant could do nothing with him, and at length 
he was not able even to bridle him. When they 
would go to whip him into obedience, they made the 
mistake of whipping him around the legs, which only 
made him worse. In turn, he would crowd the man 
up against the wall to the great danger of his life. At 
times he would break his halter in a fit of anger and 
make it dangerous for anyone to go into his stall. 
When I went to see him he had been unhaltered in his 
stall for several days, no one daring to risk himselV 
with him, armed with a whip or club. I first called 
him to the door of his box stall, where I succeeded in 
putting on him the eclipse halter, (see description in 
Chapter xxn) with which I led him out. He reared 
and plunged so as to be uncontrollable without the foot 



IOS HORSE EDUCATION. 

ropes as described in Chapter vni. No one could go 
near his feet to put them on. I used the pole, (see 
Chapter ix.) Getting him well used to being touched, 
and he would presently allow the pole, but not the 
hand. We then blindfolded him, so that he could not 
know whether he was touched by hand or pole. It 
was easy then to put on the foot straps and the sur- 
cingle; then with one man at the ropes and another at 
his head, his education was begun. On being led out, 
his habit was to rear upon the person leading him. 
This was impossible while he had on the ropes. As 
he was then unable to strike with his feet, he made a 
grab for me with open mouth, when his head was not 
more than two feet from mine. He aimed at my side, 
but he caught only my vest and shirt, both of which, 
his teeth took back with them. He yielded to treat- 
ment with apparent good temper till he seemed per- 
fectly tractable. He was then hitched in his box stall 
with the unbreakable halter described in Chapter v. 
Every chance was given him to break the halter, which 
he had often done before, but when he found it im- 
possible he ceased to try. 

To prevent his crowding his keeper in the stall, a 
chain was fastened so as to crowd him to one side of 
his stall,, and bridling became easy. 

Since his first lesson his owner has had no trouble in 
controlling him. Once in a while he shows his recol- 
lection of his old habits, but with the owner's prompt 
use of severe discipline he returns at once to quiet 
manners. He bids fair to become a perfectly quiet and 
safe horse. He is certainly very intelligent, and not 
naturally vicious, but he has been the victim of bad 



THE HARDEST CASE YET. IO9 

training. 

Any cautious and resolute man can handle any such 
colt successfully if he only knows how. If the colt is 
at all dangerous, take no chances with him. Fix him 
so that he can be handled with safety. Let the train- 
er put his intelligence against that of the horse, and 
put him in a condition in which he cannot do harm in 
the process of learning to obey. 



CHAPTER XL. 

TO BECOME A GOOD HORSE EDUCATOR. 

The first animal that one has need to practice upon 
is himself. Until the man can control himself so that 
he will never become disconcerted, or outwitted, or 
out of temper, he had better let out horse training to 
some one else. Unless he first makes a conquest of 
himself he will sometime either let a horse have the 
better of him, and become injured, or else he will injure 
the horse or leave him no better than he was at first. 

Some men say they can train a horse without a 
book. So they can if they know how. But the object 
of the study of books is to get the advantage of years 
of experience of other men. If one can do as well 
before he knows how, let him go on without a sys- 
tem and succeed if he can. But if he succeeds at all 
it must be on some well considered plan, which he 
has well in mind, and this may be his own or another's. 
It cannot be a guess so, or a happen so. He must be 
so prepared that he never becomes surprised, but he 
must be ready for any trick, or any stupidity, or wick- 
edness, and he must know the next step, at least as 
readily as a horse does. 

It is also one of the indispensables, with or without 
books, to study the horse's disposition. Before he 
can do this he must have the faculty to learn such 
things. Depend upon it, as soon as a horse finds he 
is going to have anything to do with a man, he studies 



TO BECOME A GOOD HORSE EDUCATOR. Ill 

him well, and makes up his mind what kind of a man 
he has met. If the horse is young he always deter- 
mines to outwit his new acquaintance if he can, and he 
proceeds with his experiments. If you undertake to 
treat horses without thorough study and preparation, 
you had better reconsider it and apply yourself to some 
profession in which you will only have to treat man. 

To be a good horse educator is to be more than a 
mere tamer of horses. The educator must be able to 
impart an education that makes a higher grade horse. 
The way to give a horse a higher value is to increase 
his capability of knowing what he is to do, and then 
cultivating his disposition to do it well. Any body can 
break the spirit of a horse, but not every one can de- 
velop a horse's mind as an education develops the mind 
of a boy. If a man deserves the name of horse-educa- 
tor, he will promote the animal's mental improvement 
and his self-control. 



PART FOURTH. 

TROTTING. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

TROTTING IN AMERICA. 

A fast horse is somewhat like a diamond — no one is 
certain to find one. The variety of them makes the 
circle of their fortunate owners very small. Only the 
wealthy can afford them, and among those who fancy 
them and who feel they must have them, money is 
not an object. While the pride of possession is 
ample remuneration for the expense, there are various 
sources of income to the horse owners who covet the 
laurels of Maud S. or Jay-Eye-See. Among all the 
animals that go upon the ground, the fastest horse is 
as rare as the finest diamond is among precious stones. 
They are alike in this, that both will always be rare 
and dear, and again unlike in the fact that the fast 
horse only can be both serviceable and profitable; and 
also unlike, because the diamond will never inciease in 
value nor be tree from unrequited expense to the 
owner. 

It is just about one hundred years since trotting 
came into special notice in America. In 1788, on a 
bright morning in May, at the foot of Market street, 
Philadelphia, there was landed the English stallion, 



TROTTING IN AMERICA. 113 

Messenger. He was gray, fifteen hands three incnes 
high, was said to be thoroughbred, and was eight 3-ears 
old. He was a horse of fine build in the main, though 
lacking in several particular points. The shoulders 
were upright, the withers low, the neck short and 
straight, and the head large and bony. His loins and 
hind quarters were large and muscular, the windpipe 
and nostrils very large, while fat and clean shanks went 
down from large hocks and knees. Whether in rest 
or in action he would strike the stranger as a remark- 
able horse. On the voyage he had three equine fel- 
low passengers, that were such poor sailors that they 
became poor and thin and their lank skeletons had 
to be helped to walk down the gang plank at the 
landing. But Messenger received the invitation to 
land with a loud, cheerful neigh, and so leaped out that 
two colored grooms seized, one each side his bridle, 
but he carried them along, trotting down the plank 
and dashing up the street for some distance. Those 
who are familiar with the build of Rysdyk's Hamble- 
tonian will detect several points of exact resemblance 
to this horse, his imported ancestor, along his lineage 
only the third step back. 

Messenger's recorded ancestry ran back through 
Mambrino, Engineer, Sampson, Blaze, and (Flying) 
Childers, to the Darley Arabian, a full Arabian horse 
brought to England in the reign of Queen Anne, 1702 
— 1 7 14. He had run in England with moderate suc- 
cess,, and later ran a mile in three minutes in this coun- 
try. He lived twenty years after his importation, and 
died on Long Island and was honored at his burial by 
the firing of a volley of musketr}' over his grave. His 

8 



114 HORSE EDUCATION. 

progeny were more distinguished than himself, for as 
trotting came on the turf, it was found that the best 
trotters were the descendants of Messenger. He was 
the grandsire of Abdallah, which was in turn the sire 
of Rysdyk's Hambletonian, both of these illustrious 
among trotters. And now at the end of a hundred 
years since Messenger stepped on our soil, his descend- 
ants are among the most distinguished trotters, or 
sires of trotters, on the earth. Prominent among 
hundreds of others are the names of Mambrino, 
Abdallah, Rysdyk's Hambletonian, Dexter, George 
Wilkes, Phallas, Almont, Maud S., Goldsmith Maid, 
Jay-Eye-See, Bell Boy, Nutwood, Electioneer, Volun- 
teer, Stamboul, and a score besides. 

It was not till ten years after Messenger received 
his final military honors, that there was a public trot- 
ting against time in this country, and that was in 1818, 
and for $1000. The occasion of this contest was 
that eminent horsemen declared that the horse did not 
live that could trot a mile in three minutes. A new 
horse, called Boston Blue, performed the feat and was 
honored much as a new horse would be in 1890 that 
should do the same thing in two minutes. Turfmen 
fix on 1830 as the time when trotting had become so 
popular in this country as to become an established 
sport. 

The turf has a future in the United States that can 
now be but very dimly outlined. The time for trot- 
ting a mile shortens continually; the price of fast trot- 
ters goes up all the time; and the candidates for dis- 
tinction in speed are greatly increasing every year. 
In England, while the number of tracks has fallen off 



TROTTING IN AMERICA. 115 

one-half in fifty years, the value of the stakes is on the 
increase, and no other amusement awakens half so 
much enthusiasm among all classes. 

The cultivation of speed in trotting carries with it 
improvement in the qualities of endurance and docility. 
In Arabia, where the speed of the horse was for ages 
the greatest in the world, there also the horse has al- 
ways been a light feeder, and he is more kindly in 
spirit than anywhere else. We can form some idea 
of the almost winged speed of a swift horse, from the 
fact that the flying Childers, son of Darley Arabian, 
was known to pass over eighty-two and a half feet in 
a second of time, a rapidity that surprised the world a 
hundred and fifty years ago, but surpassed since by 
Lexington, an American, and it is surpassed by many 
a trotter now. The photograph of a fast trotter has 
been taken, showing every foot off the ground at the 
same instant. As the definition of trotting is, that, al- 
ternately, two feet are in the air and the other two on 
the ground at the same instant and on opposite sides, 
it follows that if all the feet are off the ground at once, 
that the horse must be, for a part of the time, actually 
flying without wings. 

It has come about that price and speed are going 
upward together with equal step. As it is well known 
that the best class of sires impress their own character- 
istics upon their offspring, it is quite possible for any 
well appointed stock farm to amass for its owner a 
fortune. Nor need he wait but a very short time till 
he begins to reap his golden harvest. When a breed- 
er refuses sixteen thousand dollars for a three-year- 
old filly, or a suckling is sold at auction for $3,750, or 



Il6 HORSE EDUCATION. 

a trotting stallion brings at auction $51,000, or a three- 
year-old colt changes hands for $105,000, there must 
be long money in the business of breeding, for many 
years to come. 

The value of a good horse can hardly be overstated. 
Messenger lived twenty years after coming to this 
country, and from him there have come many famous 
lines of trotters. No great trotter of the present time 
can be found whose pedigree will not strike one or 
other of the Messenger branches within four genera- 
tions. It is estimated that the value of horses in this 
country has been increased to the amount $100,000,000 
by the blood of this celebrated horse. 

There are well known families of trotters other than 
the Messenger, or the line known later as the Hamble- 
tonian, as for example, the Morgans and Bashaws, the 
account of which our limits rule out. Constant acces- 
sions are being made to the trotting aristocracy. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

PRACTICAL TROTTER TRAINING. 

Many readers of this book will be grateful for the 
next four chapters from the pen of Joseph C. Callahan, 
of Sandwich, Illinois. For fifteen years he has giv- 
en careful and intelligent attention to training colts 
for trotting. He is also a breeder of horses, looking 
chiefly to speed. That he has been successful, so that 
he knows what he is talking about, is abundantly 
proved by the following lines from his record : 

OWNER AND TRAINER OF RECORD, 

"Callahan's Maid, - - - 2:25. 

"Troubadour, - 2:1.9)^ 

"Nettie C, - - - 2:23. 

"Billy K, - - - - 2:35. 

"Trainer of Sir Knight, - - 2:23^." 

With this introduction to Mr. Callahan you will 
read with great interest what he says on the practical 
subject of breeding and training trotters, in the re- 
mainder of this and in the next three chapters. 

THE ART OF TRAINING TROTTERS. 

Victor Hugo has the credit of saying: "If you want 
to reform a man you must begin with his grand- 
mother." If you want to raise a trotter you must be- 
gin several generations back. A good trotter never be 
comes so by accident, but he is the result of careful 
breeding. He is the product of years of careful work 
in selecting and in reproducing the qualities that make 



II» HORSE EDUCATION. 

for speed. If you want to raise a fast trotter you can- 
not wait for a dozen generations of .horses to develop 
the qualities of speed for you; you will have to build 
on the work done for many years before you begin, 
and you can select a sire and a dam, if you will, that 
will bring you what you want. In the first place, the 
mare must have intelligence; what we call good horse 
sense. Then she must have good limbs and feet, for 
poor limbs cannot stand the wear and tear of hard trot- 
ting. Indifferent limbs might stand it to trot a mile in 
three minutes, or possibly in 2 : 40, but no horse can 
trot heats in the twenties, or lower, unless his limbs are 
perfect. Thirdly, select a mare that has the right 
way of going — good knee action, a long stride, and one 
that goes wide behind. This is the best way of go- 
ing, for a horse that is gaited this way goes with the 
least friction. But almost every horse has some pecu- 
liarity of action, and the main thing is to get there ; 
but a horse must either be of long stride, or else be 
of very rapid gait to be a fast trotter. The long strid- 
er will gain in speed the fastest but he is more liable 
to strains of various kinds because he covers more 
ground at one step and therefore uses more strength. 
In selecting a stallion you will look for the same 
qualities just mentioned as being needed in the mare. 
Do not be misled by pedigree. You are to take the 
qualities that you want to have reproduced and look for 
them more in the horse himself than in his ancestors. 
He may have failed to inherit the ancestral speed and 
it may never appear in his progeny. You are aiming 
to produce a fast trotter, then look for the exact qual- 
ities in the sire that you wish to reproduce. There 



PRACTICAL TROTTER TRAINING. II9 

are scores of standard bred horses that cannot trot, 
and no skill of trainers or drivers can make them go, 
for it is not in them. Breeding is all right when you 
have a performer, but what is a pedigree without the 
horse ? There was a full brother to Rarus that could 
not trot a mile in 3:00. Maud S. has brothers and 
sisters, but you do not hear of any 2 : 10 among them. 
In the fifteen years that I have been driving and edu- 
cating trotters, I have only driven one standard bred 
horse, and he was the poorest of the whole lot. He 
had but one redeeming quality and that was pluck; in 
that he was a regular bull dog, but that was a poor 
substitute for speed in a trotter; but such horses as 
Troubadour, 2:19^, or Sir Knight, 2:23^, not bred 
strictly to the rule, were his superiors by far. It is 
common now for moneyed men to pay high prices for 
pedigree, but in my opinion there is more real value 
in the horse that excels on the turf, whatever may 
have been the breeding. 

We had good horses ten and twenty years ago, 
when they had longer and harder races than we have 
now. And now, well as our horses perform in our 
time and by our methods, I believe that if our horses 
were tried in the kind of races of twenty years ago, 
they would make no better records than were made 
then. I will give my reasons for thinking so and if I 
am wrong I will be glad to be set right: The way a 
thoroughbred is produced is by inbreeding, and the 
closer you inbreed the more pure the strain of blood 
becomes, but you diminish the animal in size and you 
weaken the constitution. You can produce a thorough- 
bred by breeding as closely as possible for four crosses, 



120 HORSE EDUCATION. 

then you have a clear strain of blood either in 
horses, cattle, or hogs. Some trotters are so closely 
inbred, and have been for years, that there is no vital- 
ity left. It often happens that to cross out and not 
get a standard animal has a good result. There are 
some rules that have no exceptions: one is, breed to 
trotters for trotters; and another is, that you cannot 
get something out of nothing. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

HOW TO DEVELOP SPEED. 

When you are ready to develop speed let your 
young trotter be somewhat matured; four years will 
do, but five are better. Shoe him tolerably heavy for- 
ward and as light as possible behind. Most new be- 
ginners go too low in front, and a little weight gives 
them more knee action, and gets them started sooner. 
Try and get your colt gaited right at the start; have 
him go square and level, every lick just alike. Let 
him take a jog of four or five miles on the course, or 
on a good road, and keep increasing the gait toward 
the last and finally end up the last half as fast as he 
can trot. Do not rush him off the square gait I have 
alluded to. It is better to slow him up than to have 
him begin to hitch or single foot; if he reaches out and 
shows you a nice gait do not speed him too far to 
make him tired or discouraged, but stop him while he 
is doing well; the next day you can go through the 
same course, and if you do not overdo him he will 
make improvement in something or other every time 
he is out. Do not lose your patience about anything. 
Fast trotters are not made in a week, nor in a year, 
and if he fails to do well to-day he will not fail some 
other day. A colt of good parts sometimes fails to 
make a trotter, for no fault of his, but of his trainer. 

Feed a colt, that is in training for a trotter, enough 
of good food to keep him strong. The method of 



122 HORSE EDUBATION. 

drawing or starving them is a thing of the past, and 
trotters of to-day can have plenty of good hay, and 
thirty minutes at grass every day, and still trot : and 
we make trotters in one-half the time they used to. A 
colt should be empty when he is trotting, but after 
work nothing is too good for him. My method is to 
feed only oats, and not over two gallons of water, till 
they have been worked out and then I feed him well. 
Starving a horse will not promote his speed. 

When a horse has been warmed by trotting he 
should not cool off too quickly. He should be covered 
well, and kept out of any draught, so he will cool off 
gradually. Then the muscles will not become stiff, 
and no bad results will follow. A horse should never 
stand with his breast to the wind. The opposite is far 
safer for any horse. 

The legs of a trotter should be well taken care of; 
no horse will go at his best if there is any stiffness or 
any fever in his legs. It takes a master mechanic to 
keep a horse's legs all right, and be trotting him in the 
twenties or less. He will need bandages, arnica, 
Pond's extract, bay-rum and high wines, and the horse 
will need grooming and rubbing, and food and water, 
at regular times, and time for rest and sleep. The 
man who has the care of a fast trotter has more to do 
with the animal's success than the driver has. Some 
horses seem able to endure any kind of irregularity 
and never seem to mind it, never get bruised or lamed 
or worn out, while others need a board of health and 
a drug store to keep them all right. He keeps on the 
safe side who allows no possibility of accident as to 
wind or limb, food or rest, heat, cold, or exercise. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE SCIENCE OF BREEDING TROTTERS. 

Kentucky is the hot-bed of the American trotter. 
As the Athenians were devoted to novelties, so the 
Kentuckians are devoured with the desire for fast and 
fine horses. They are first and always to be fast, 
whether they are fine or not. In central and southern 
Kentucky the climate admits of twelve months growth 
for colts in every year. There is no pinching winter, 
nor fierce northern winds, nor sleet, to absorb the life 
of the colt, even if he should never see the inside of a 
stable. A Kentucky colt at four, is a year in advance 
of one farther north in maturity of both bone and fibre. 
Historians call Asia the cradle of the human race, but 
in another sense the Alexander stock farm, at Lexing- 
ton, Kentucky, is the cradle of the race. There are 
kept to this day the sires and dams that have become 
famous by the exploits of their descendants. There 
are Harold and Miss Russell, the sire and dam of 
Maud S., the only one of horse kind that ever trotted 
in 2:08^ ; also Belmont and Miss Russell similarly re- 
lated to Nutwood, 2: 18^; there also is Dictator, sire 
of Jay-Eye-See, .2:10; and of Phallas, 2:13^; Di- 
rector, 2:17^. 

In that garden of speed there has come to be an aris- 
tocracy for which a horse does not have to wait till 
he achieves an unprecedented speed, but which he 
enters by virtue of his family. In Boston, the key to 



124 HORSE EDUCATION. 

society is to answer well the question : " What does he 
know ? " That in the equine world would be the 
circus horse. In New York, the society question is: 
"What is his style?" That is the carriage horse. 
In Baltimore, society asks, "What is his family?" 
And many a ragged bird has a high perch for his rela- 
tion's sake. In Kentucky the theory of horse aristocra- 
cy is that speed is in the blood, and each family has 
its own peculiar blood. If great speed is developed in 
a member of any family then all of that family are 
sought for at high rates, for breeding. It does not 
matter whether he is orthodox in the shape of his 
neck, or in the style or the soundness of his limbs ; if 
he has a cousin that has gone a mile under 2 : 20, the 
fortune of the family is made, even though many of them 
cannot trot a mile in five minutes to save their lives. 
There must come an end to this delusion. There is 
comparative certainty of the transmission of good qual- 
ities, but there is always a danger that any one bad 
quality, that is prominent, may intensify itself in the 
next generation. 

Now, as to the outfit of qualities for a trotter, first, 
and foremost, he ought to have a head. It should be a 
good, intelligent head. If he has a fool's head he will 
always be a fool. The value of the brain is partly 
from its volume. From a broad forehead you expect 
courage, teachableness, good temper. The eye should 
be full, clear, soft; the ear is to be like flexible parch- 
ment, of medium size ; the jaws far enough apart for 
the play of the throat and windpipe; the nostrils wide 
and thin so as to take in a large volume of air and to 
give out a great effusion of exhausted air along the 



THE SCIENCE OF BREEDING TROTTERS. 1 25 

wide windpipe and expanding nostrils. 

Next, the trotter should have the best of sound legs. 
There are hundreds of horses in training that can show 
fast quarters and halves, but that never make fast 
miles or low records. The reason is, they are poor- 
limbed and when you key them up for a mile the 
strain is too great, and they become curbed, or spavined 
or puffed. The horses that have records within ten 
2 : 20, either above or below, are the select few from 
the multitude; their limbs are perfect; they are sound 
It is said that the ankle bones of an English thorough- 
bred have a firmness and fineness like ivory; they are 
bred, first, for soundness, and they have it; then next 
comes speed. It is only the healthy, strong legs that 
can stand the fitting to go a mile in the teens. I have 
seen a four-year old whose owner had refused $20,000 
for him. His value was chiefly that he belonged to 
the most distinguished family of trotters in the United 
States. But his ancestry had been bred for speed first, 
not for soundness first, and as you might expect, he 
had already on one leg, a large, settled, disabling 
curb. It is evident that mistakes were in the world 
before he was, and that he may be ornamental, but not 
otherwise useful. 

A third point is, that a colt should approach maturity 
before he tries the work of a matured horse. If he 
comes up like a mushroom he will, like a mushroom, go 
to pieces. Early maturity and lasting qualities rarely, 
if ever, go together. The process of teething is ma- 
tured at five years old, which is a suggestion as to the 
time when hard work may begin. The custom of 
driving two-year-olds, or even younger colts, on hotly 



126 HORSE EDUCATION. 

contested races, is modern and destructive. A colt so 
prematurely driven will be worn out, or broken down 
with the cruelty before he comes to the age of his 
prime. 

An old writer lays down the principles of horse- 
breeding in a few words, but in a way to cover the 
facts here presented: 

" Acquired qualities are transmitted whether they 
belong to the sire or dam, and also both bodily and 
mental. As bad qualities are quite as easily transmit- 
ted as good ones, if not more so, it is necessary to take 
care that in selecting a male to improve the stock he 
is free from bad points, as well as furnished with good 
ones. It is known by experience that the good or bad 
points of the progenitors of the sire or dam are almost 
as likely to appear again in the offspring as those of 
the immediate parents, in which they are dormant. 
Hence, in breeding, the rule is that like produces like, 
or the likeness of some ancestor." 



CHAPTER XLV. 

COMPLETE THE GROWTH BEFORE THE SPEED. 

It has come into vogue in recent times, that colts o£ 
two years, and even of one year, are trained and trot- 
ted under the greatest excitement. This puts the ani- 
mal under the highest pressure at a time when all the 
bones and joints are soft; before the ligaments and 
tendons have any fitness for the strains and the jerks 
of a hotly contested race. Early training is opposed 
to staying qualities. Men give many reasons for this 
ruinous precocity, this premature fast driving for colts. 
One is that the colt can have an early name and record, 
and so he is saleable at an early age at high rates. 
This has been tried in England until high prices for 
fast colts are a thing of the past. Another is willing 
to ruin a few colts that he may drive one or two into 
fame; even if they never trot again, or even if they 
die in their tracks, so that their low record may estab- 
lish the name of their sire for speed. When Axtell 
lowered the speed of three-year-olds to 2:14^, at 
Minneapolis, in July, 1889, it put up the fame of his 
sire, William L., as a speed producer. It will proba- 
bly shatter the } r oung bones, and splint or curb the legs 
of a great many of Axtell's young relatives to try to 
produce another prodigy in the same family. 

There are horses kept for breeding purposes at 
very high rates, that could hardly take a fifty pound 
sulky around the track at milk-wagon speed, whose 



128 HORSE EDUCATION. 

chief merit is that there is speed in his uncles and his 
cousins and his aunts. The old hunting ground of 
Daniel Boone and Simon Gerty is again hunted over, 
but this time not for grizzlies, but for colts. They 
must be colts, for colts are cheaper than horses ; there 
is a chance in them for rare speed, and they may come 
down the homestretch at a two-minute gait, and sell 
for a hundred thousand dollars, or they may start a 
breeding farm, originate a new family of speed produc- 
ers; may make their owner a millionaire and trot him 
into glory. 

It takes a reckless man to bring out a fast colt. 
Any man of judgment knows that when he is trying 
to drive a two-year-old colt in 2 : 30, or a three-year- 
old in 2:14, that it is not in reason that the tender 
young body can stand it. Even though the colt may 
trot a few fast miles it means utter destruction before 
long. It is like a man running an engine, when he 
knows the speed is too great for the safety of the ma- 
chine, and bye and bye all go into the ditch together. 

It is a nice thing to have a fast colt, but how much 
nicer to have a horse like Rarus, or Goldsmith Maid, 
or Hopeful, to campaign all over the country, and then 
end up all right and sound. It may pay a breeder to 
develop colts at one, two, or three years, and make 
early sales, but the man that buys them will find that if 
the colt has a strained tendon, or a broken constitution, 
he has something that there is no remedy for, either in 
the trainer's art or in the drug store. 

Lastly, but not leastly, the horse intended for fast 
work must have a strong heart and a good circulation. 
A horse may be well bred, finely gaited and well 



COMPLETE THE GROWTH BEFORE THE SPEED. I 29 

limbed, but unless he has a free circulation and a 
strong heart he will be almost worthless as a runner, 
or as a fast trotter. The heart is the motor from 
which all power is derived. Every drop of blood of the 
human body passes through the heart in two minutes, 
and the stronger the heart is the harder any animal can 
work and the less fatigued he will be. The relative 
power of the animal's heart can only be determined by 
thorough trial. If a horse comes out of a heat limp as 
a rag, panting, his ears lopped, showing every sign of 
fatigue, his circulation is poor and sluggish. Another 
horse, with the same amount of work, will puff as 
much, but he will have a freshness in his looks, and he 
will not seem so utterly exhausted. He has the better 
constitution for a fast horse. It requires a brilliant 
combination of qualities to make a fine and fast horse, 
and only the horse of the rarest combination can get 
down close to two minutes. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

HIGH PRICES FOR SWIFT HEELS. 

The rate at which horses of great speed are com- 
manding fabulous prices, is one of the wonders of mod- 
ern times. About every tenth man, who breeds horses 
at all, is fired with the ambition to introduce to the 
world the next famous trotter. The year 1889 was 
unprecedented for the additions it made to the num- 
ber of horses that came upon the record of 2 : 30 
or less. It was also without rival in the frequen- 
cy of sales of flying feet. Appended are the names of 
a few of the horses sold, and the prices : 

The owner of Baron Wilkes, 2:18, by George 
Wilkes, in 1888 refused $46,000 for him. 

Anteo, 2: 16^, by Electioneer, was sold for a Kal- 
amazoo stock farm, 'in 1889, for $30,000. 

Anteco, 2: 16^, by Electioneer, went from Califor- 
nia in 1889, with a record of 2:16^ to Kentucky, 
where he was sold for $30,000. 

Stamboul, 2:14^, by Sultan, at the age of seven, 
was sold in 1889 to W. S. Hobart, San Francisco, for 
$51,000, and an offer of $75,000 from the east did not 
move him. 

Bell Boy has always been held at high figures. As 
a yearling he sold for $5,000. At the end of his sec- 
ond year he trotted at 2 : 26 and brought $35,000, and 
in 1888 he changed hands for $50,000, arfd again in 
February, 1889, at the age of four, he was sold for 



HIGH PRICES FOR SWIFT HEELS. 131 

$51,000. 

Axtell, by William L., foaled in 1886, made the 
lowest record for a three-year-old, ever known, and 
lower than any other living stallion, viz: 2:12. The 
next day after he had lowered his record to 2:14^, 
his owner could have taken for him $80,000. When 
he ran again and cut off the fraction, the applause 
was immense, and when at the next trial he made the 
famous figure of 2: 12, his owner was induced to part 
with him for $105,000. 

Electioneer, by Rysdyk's Hambletonian, died in 
1888, at the age of thirty- four. The extraordinary speed 
of his descendants in California, where many of his 
later years were spent, has attracted to that state a 
procession of capitalists to gather up his swift-running 
blood and to carry it east. In 1887 it was announced 
that no yearling colt by Electioneer would be offered 
at less than $2,500. Since that time a yearling colt 
by Electioneer has been sold for $12,500. 

Dexter, by Rysdyk's Hambletonian, the banner 
horse of Bonner, died in 1888, a little over thirty years 
of age. More than twenty years before he took the 
record of 2 : 1 7 ^ , which was at that period the fastest 
time ever made by a trotter. Mr. Bonner then paid 
$35,000 for him, the highest price for a horse in mod- 
ern times, up to that date. It is said that Mr. Bonner 
refused to consider $100,000 for him afterwards. A 
challenge offer of $100,000 for a horse that would do 
what Dexter did, was never claimed. Mr. Bonner 
made this offer for any horse, whether he be young or 
old, sound or unsound, lame or free from lameness, 
whether he have one spavin or two, three ring bones 



132 HORSE EDUCATION. 

or four, be blind of one eye or both, broken winded 
or foundered — so long as he performs the feat. The 
feat, which, if successful, would have stripped Dexter 
of his laurels, was not undertaken. 

There is not space here to note a tithe of the sales 
at high figures of horses of fine blood, and of high 
speed. A writer has lately made the statement that 
" a horse whose record is' 2 : 30 will command $10,000, 
and each second below that figure adds another thou- 
sand." Exceptions, both above and below this rate, 
are numerous, but the rule is definite enough to fill the 
country with tracks, and to fill the track with youthful 
Dexters and would-be Axtells. 



CHAPTER XL VII. 

STANDARD RULES. 

The American trotter has the best record in the 
world. The breeding of trotters is now brought to 
great perfection. There has grown up a trotter aris- 
tocracy among horsemen which is growing so rigid 
in its rules, and speed is increasing so rapidly, that the 
time is probably near when a mile will be made in 2 : 00. 

The rules governing admission of horses to standard 
rank were somewhat amended in the year 1888, so 
that at present writing, 1889, they stand as follows: 

1. Any stallion that has himself a record of 2:30 
or better, provided any o his get has a record of 2:35 
or better, or provided his sire or dam is already a 
standard animal. 

2. Any mare or gelding that has a record of 2:30 
or better. 

3. Any horse that is the sire of two animals with 
a record of 2 : 30 or better. 

4. Any horse that is the sire of one animal with a 
record of 2 : 30 or better, provided that he has either 
of the following qualifications: (a) a record himself 
of 2 : 30 or better; (b) is the sire of two other ani- 
mals with a record of 2:30 or better; (c) has a sire 
or dam that is already a standard animal. 

5. Any mare that has produced an animal with a 
record of 2 : 30 or better. 

6. A progeny of a standard horse when out of a 



134 HORSE EDUCATION. 

standard mare. 

7. The female progeny of a standard horse when 
out of a mare by a standard horse. 

8. The female progeny of a standard horse when 
out of a mare whose dam is a standard mare. 

9. Any mare that has a record of 2: 35 or better 
and whose sire or dam is a standard animal. 

AVERAGE OF SPEED. 

The average of extreme speed of trotters in this 
country, gains with every decade. Here is a state- 
ment of it made up by taking the average of the five 
fastest performers for each decade since 1820, It is 
from the pen of Leslie E. Macleod, the highest au- 
thority : 

1820 to 1830 - - - 2:42 

1830 to 1840 --- - 2:35^ 

1840 to 1850 - 2:28^ 

1850 to i860 - - - - 2:25 

i860 to 1870 - 2:18^ 

1870 to 1880 - - - - 2:14 

1880 to 1887 - - - 2:ny 2 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

HOW TO LAY OUT A TRACK. 

Dunton's Spirit of the Turf gives the following- 
method of laving out a track : 

FOR A MILE TRACK. 

A field of forty-two acres will do. Draw a line 
through the oblong center, 440 yards in length, set- 
ting a stake at each end. Then draw a line on either 
side of the first line, exactly parallel with and 140 
yards from it, setting stakes at either end of them. 
You will then have an oblong square 440 yards long 
and 280 yards wide. At each end of these three lines 
you will now set stakes. Now then, fasten a cord or 
wire 140 yards long to the center stake of your paral- 
lelogram, and then describe a half circle, driving stakes 
as often as you wish to set a fence post. This half 
circle, commencing at one side and extending to the 
other, will measure 440 yards. When the circle is made 
at both ends of your parallelogram, you will have 
two straight sides that measure 440 yards each, 
and two circles of exactly the same length, which, 
measured three feet from the line, will be exactly a mile- 
The turns should be thrown up an inch to the foot. 

HALF-MILE TRACK. 

Draw two parallel lines 600 feet long and 452 feet 
five inches apart. Half way between the extreme ends 
of the two parallel lines drive a stake; then loop a wire 
around the stake, long enough to reach to either side. 



1^6 HORSE EDUCATION. 



J 



Then make a true curve with the wire, putting down a 
stake as often as a fence post is needed. When this 
operation is finished at both ends of the 600 foot paral- 
lel lines, the track is laid out. The inside fence will 
rest exactly on the line drawn, but the track must 
measure a half mile three feet from the fence. The 
turns should be thrown up an inch to the foot. The 
stretches may be anywhere from 45 to 60 feet wide. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

MORALS OF THE TRACK. 

It has come to be a sa} T ing that wealth, learning 
and horses never go hand in hand. Yet there are 
some notable contradictions of this, among whom Mr. 
Bonner and W. H. H. Murray have a national fame, 
and the pencil of Rosa Bonheur was happier among 
horses than anywhere else. There is no reason in the 
world that horsemen should be slangy, vulgar or pro- 
fane. There is nothing in the business to degrade 
men, more, than there is in the trade in cattle or in 
grain. No one can admire horses and bring them to 
their highest perfection by study and work, without 
being at least sober and regular in his habits, and 
humane. Many fast horses are so valuable that they 
cannot be owned except by men of great wealth, and 
it is a rare thing that the owners of fine stock are any- 
thing else than refined and honorable men; as much 
so as well to do farmers and merchants. 

It is for horsemen themselves to make their profes- 
sion as reputable as any other. Tricks and dishonesty, 
and gambling and drinking, should be run off the 
track. The superiority of speed should be as honest- 
ly ascertained as the excellence of cabbages, or of oil 
paintings. Even the stable, where good blood is kept, 
should not only be tidy, but should also be morally 
clean. The American turf will reach its highest re- 
spectability and also its best returns of money, when 



I38 HORSE EDUCATION. 

our horsemen require that every trainer and groom 
and rider shall have the character and habits of a 
gentleman, or lose his place. 

Nothing attracts the masses in this country more 
than the trials of speed between famous, or fine horses. 
The owners of running or trotting stock should con- 
trol the places of meeting so far as to insist that noth- 
ing derogatory to public morals shall be allowed at 
trotting tracks. It is in their power to do this. It 
ought to be done. The management should not abate 
their expenses by giving license to men to set up their 
gins to fleece their spectators. It is a misrepresentation 
of the whole enterprise to have the ground studded 
over with petty gamblers with rings, and balls, wooden 
babies and lotteries and with saloons. It is not for 
owners of horses nor their trainers or riders that such 
miserables gather at the track; it is to deceive or rob 
the visitors. It is hoped by many that the managers 
of trotting tracks shall clean out their grounds from 
all such nuisances, and if they do not, that owners of 
fine stock will refuse to bring them out at such places. 

In fact when tests of speed of the horse cannot be 
made fairly and honestly it will be time to quit the 
business. One of the most famous promoters of speed 
in this country was Mr. Bonner, of New York. He 
was a fond lover of a fine horse; and yet he took the 
utmost pains to prevent betting on his horses. They 
trotted against time, and alone. There were no stakes 
with him, no gate money, no more incentive to gambling 
than there is in the arrival of a trans- Atlantic steamer. 
And there need not be any time. A horse can trot for a 
prize, and a Sunday school boy can run for one at a 



MORALS OF THE TRACK. 1 39 

picnic. 

There is no place so given to putting up money on 
a favorite as the race track, except at a presidential 
election. Even then the candidates are said to be " on 
the track," " in the race," and to be " running." One 
of them is sure to " win the race," though the " win- 
ner "maybe" handicapped." The most stringent laws 
fail to keep gamblers from thus thronging the presiden- 
tial race course. The men who bet on the election of 
a favorite are among the most eminent and respectable. 
With such high examples, and with the strong tendency 
to back one's hopes with his money, it is not strange 
that there is a great similiarity in the two race courses. 
If we can banish gambling from the " running " for 
president, there will be a fairer prospect of banishing it 
from the turf. 



PART FIFTH. 



THE FOOT OF THE HORSE. 



CHAPTER L. 

THE STRUCTURE OF THE HOOF. 

The hoof of the horse is more exposed to wear and 
tear than any other portion of his bod}\ To supply 
this loss there is in him a manufactory of horny matter, 
exactly adapted to his ordinary life. The hoofs are in 
their nature of the substance of the nails or claws of 
other creatures, and like these, they grow from the 
base. The outside is of hard, dense, compact, insensi- 
ble horn, and it is of fine, thin laminas or layers. These 
laminae are of the nature of membranes, and in the inner 
part are supplied with many blood vessels and nerves, 
indicating great* sensitivity. If a wrongly directed 
nail in shoeing, or a nail splintered in driving because 
made of poor iron, should penetrate this sensitive part 
of a horse's foot, it would cause intolerable pain, re- 
sulting in inflammation and possibly lock-jaw, or even 
in death. It occurs some times from general ill health, 
or from local causes, that the hoof is not well enough 
fed. If the secretion of horn is interrupted, or if from 
local fever the hoof dries up or becomes brittle, it indi- 
cates that the gelatine is dried out and that the hoof 
wants food. Local applications, rightly chosen, will 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE HOOF. 141 

give nutriment and new vigor to the hoof until the sys- 
tem comes into the hoof-nourishing conditions. The 
dews are cooling and softening and carry healing to the 
hoof, while bathing in hard water makes it more 
brittle. 

A gentleman in Wisconsin, well known to the writer, 
owned a fine saddle horse, nearly or quite thirty years 
old, that lost the horny part of one hind foot by pulling 
out of a corduroy bridge. The horse was too much 
of a pet in the family to be killed, and for humanity's 
sake he was turned out in a damp meadow. This was 
in the spring, and before the frost came the hoof was 
reproduced, leaving no lameness and a very little dis- 
figurement. 

The Philadelphia Record of August, 1888, relates a 
fact showing the capability of the hoofs to take on new 
life. " The trotting stallion, Domestic, seven years 
old, with a record of 2: 20^, is owned by Mr. John H. 
Goldsmith, of Washingtonville, N. Y. In August, 
1887, in a stubbornly contested seven heat race, he 
contracted a severe cold, which ended in laminitis, or 
acute inflammation of the laminae of the forward feet. 
Suppuration afterwards set in, and the veterinary sur- 
geon decided to resort to the novel and delicate surgi- 
cal operation of removing the hoofs with the knife. 
Usually, in cases of this kind, the old hoof is permitted 
to slough off, or to be pushed off by the new growth 
of horn, but this treatment involves danger of deform- 
ity, or permanent lameness, or both. The operation 
was performed, and by January 1888, new and thin, 
but shapely hoofs had grown over the exposed laminae, 
and the horse was able to get on his feet again. His 



142 HORSE EDUCATION. 

feet were serviceable enough for ordinary locomotion, 
but they were always after too tender for the track. 

The horse's foot is made up of hidden springs, un- 
seen levers, self-acting pulleys, and cushions ever soft 
and easy, making up the mysterious mechanism of the 
feet and legs. Many a man who undertakes to care 
for this delicate part of the bone, is about as well 
qualified for it as he is for watch-repairing. It is an 
exception to find a horse as old as eight years with a 
healthy set of hoofs. They are brittle, shelly, ridged 
or dished, or the frogs are cut away, or the heels are 
high and inelastic. The farmer's horse, whose feet 
are seldom off the soft and healing soil, will long escape 
the effect of bad shoeing. But unskillful work upon 
feet, either at the stable, or at the shop, or at both, 
shortens the effective life of a horse by about one-half. 

In a book intended for a widely different purpose, it 
would be impossible to define minutely the kind of 
shoe, the exact form of nail, or the mode of shaping or 
fixing the shoe except in the most general terms. Our 
object is accomplished when we secure the attention of 
the horse owner to the feet of his horse. If he will 
only study the nature of the hoof, the uses of a shoe, 
and the mode of making it useful, he may learn to di- 
rect the shoeing of his own horse. 

Nature provides that the hoof of the horse shall often 
be wet with dews and rains, and the best pastures lure 
him in a dry time to the moist lands, so that the hoof 
shall not become dry and brittle. Many horse owners 
do not favor nature in this farther than to let it rain 
sometimes. Standing on the dry floor, traveling on 
hard dry roads, washing the horse's feet in hard water, 



THE STRUCTURE OF THE HOOF. I43 

are all destructive to the hoof. Instead of drying up 
the hoof, better frequently fill the hollow of the foot or 
the cavity of the shoe with one part tar oil and two 
parts whale oil. This will feed the hoof and prevent 
drying. 

The treatment of the horse in the stable often 
causes great injury to the feet. Unless the owner 
takes care of his horse's feet he must not complain of 
the smith. The feet must not stand all the year round 
on a dry hard floor or in the manure, nor be washed 
in hard water, nor be driven barefooted on graveled 
road. The considerate owner will not let his horse's 
feet become brittle and feverish from over feeding 
without exercise, nor from excessive use of corn. It 
may be the owner and not the smith that does the 
damage by his carelessness. There are two men who 
should make a study of the foot of the horse; they are 
the smith and the owner. 



CHAPTER LI. 

TO SHOE, OR NOT TO SHOE. 

The belief that every horse that travels, or that 
works on a farm, must have pieces of iron nailed to 
his feet, puts the horse and his owner at the mercy of 
the shoe-smith. This man is not often a student of 
horse anatomy. There is no class of workmen so fond 
of being thought original as the horseshoer. His 
theory of shoeing is generally his own. He does not 
verify it by actual dissections, nor does he study careful- 
ly the nature of the hoof before he adopts his methods. 
The many serious mistakes made in shoeing horses 
naturally awakens the inquiry as to the actual value of 
the horseshoer. The use of the horseshoe is modern. 
Bucephalus, the charger of Alexander the Great, never 
was shod. The later Greeks never used upon their 
horses any kind of shoes. Great generals, like Alex- 
ander, Hannibal and others, often had great armies 
delayed, and sometimes defeated, by the wearing out 
of the cavalry in hilly and rocky countries. For a 
short campaign, or for short journeys, shoes are not 
important. The farm horse rarely fails in his feet for 
want of shoes. The horses of our North American 
Indians are never shod, and their feet never fail them 
in escaping from our well shod cavalry. Dr. Rees's 
Encyclopedia states that the Romans, much as the 
people of Japan do now, sometimes placed on the feet 
of their horses what we would call boots, made of 



TO SHOE, OR NOT TO SHOE. 145 

sedges twisted together, or leather strengthened with 
plates of iron, but without any nails being driven into 
the feet. Nero used these in georgeous style, bespang- 
ling the horse's boots with silver and gold. The first 
horseshoe now known to have been used was worn 
by the horse of Childeric I., (481,) which shoe is yet 
in existence, and much resembles that of modern make. 
It is not a hundred years since draft horses wore shoes 
weighing five pounds each. " The coming man " 
will stand between the man who never shoes, and the 
man whose horse's feet are injured by shoeing. He 
will not shoe all his horses, but only those that need 
it, and them only while they need it. In any event he 
will have the sole, bars, frogs and heels as untrimmed 
as he does his own thumbs and heels. 

An interview with Hon. Lewis Steward, of Piano, 
Illinois, during the preparation of these pages, is too 
important to remain unnoticed here. Mr. Steward 
said that some years ago his attention had been called 
to the injurious effect of the shoeing of horses, and he 
had long since ceased to have his horses shod. He 
remembered that, fifty years ago, one John Evans lived 
near the present site of Piano, and was the owner of 
a little sorrel mare that probably never was touched by 
a shoe in her life. Evans would leap on the back of 
this unshod mare and, across acres of ice and crusted 
snow, would run down and capture prairie wolves in 
a fair race for speed. Mr. Steward had, a few years 
ago, a fine horse whose feet became diseased, and the 
paring and shoeing, and changing of smiths, onlv made 
them worse. Suppuration set in and he resolved to 
take off the shoes and to pave the horse's stall with 

10 



I46 HORSE EDUCATION. 

cobble stones. This was done and the feet were soon 
well and have been sound and unshod ever since. 
Another of his stallions, twenty-four years old in 1889, 
had been happy in his bare feet on the cobble stones 
for several years. The use of the cobble stones was 
to give exercise to every part of the hoof so that a 
healthy circulation could be kept up in the elastic 
part of the foot. 

On driving along the streets after his two galloping 
ponies, that never in their lives wore blinds or check 
reins or shoes, Mr. Steward drew up before a two 
horse team with a load of wood, weighing, probably 
four thousand pounds, drawn by two heavy, broad, 
strong mares. This was one of his teams. Their 
feet were round, regular and unbroken, and had not 
worn shoes for years. They were headed for a steep 
hill which he said they could go down without locking 
the wheels, or up without difficulty, and without shoes, 
taking a load of more than three tons at any season, 
except about once a year for two or three days at a 
time. None of his one hundred and fifty or more of 
horses were ever kept in the stable, in the winter, for 
want of shoes, and none stopped from going up hill or 
down for want of being shod, except as above for two 
or three days, or ever became lame from worn or in- 
jured feet. 

On being asked if he would never shoe a horse, he 
said he would shoe only for an emergency; if he had 
to drive over fields of ice he would have his horses 
shod, but as soon as the ice was gone he would have 
the shoes taken off. 

It is evident from Mr. Steward's views and habits 



TO SHOE, OR NOT TO SHOE. I47 

that thoughtful men begin to doubt the wisdom of 
keeping horses shod all the time, or even shoeing 
horses at all, for ordinary work. It is seriously doubted 
by many whether the shoeing process preserves in 
soundness as many feet as it ruins. William of Nor- 
mandy allowed a native British lord to retain his estate 
unconfiscated for the service of shoeing his horses, but 
the bold and wiley Norman made a condition that 
when a palfrey was injured by the shoeing, a sound 
one should be furnished instead. That would be a 
wise and wholesome arrangement to make in these 
days. This agreement would break up many an other- 
wise honest man. 



CHAPTER LII. 

SHOEING THE HORSE. 

Nature provides for the continual growth of the 
hoof of the horse and also, by a natural sloughing off, 
for the progressive removal of the part made useless 
by growth. The natural process leaves very little to 
be removed by the blacksmith, certainly nothing but 
the natural growth under the shoe. When he does 
cut he should leave the foot in its natural shape and 
pare away only enough to fit the shoe evenly on the 
hard and horny wall of the hoof. Never cut the foot 
to fit the shoe. For a man this would be barbarous; 
it is about the same for a horse. Make the shoe so as 
to fit the foot. 

The portion of the hoof between the bar and the 
quarter is the breeding ground of corns. On that part 
no pressure should ever come. The hardened, horny 
substance, around the outside of the hoof, which is 
about half an inch thick, should rest evenly on the shoe, 
and that part only. Inside of that there is a softer, 
cushion-like substance, never to be cut nor even 
touched, except to be washed. If let alone it will suffi- 
ciently shed its superabundant growth. The frog cuts 
like cheese and it is so easy and nice to cut at it, that 
the man with a sharp knife cuts away, knowing that 
he will never wear the shoe himself nor drive the 
horse. 

A knife should never touch the inside of the foot of 



SHOEING THE HORSE. 1 49 

the horse, that is, inside of the outer horny rim. 
Leave the sole and the frog as nature made them. If 
they grow more than nature pleases you, let them do 
as the feet of the wild horses do. Insist upon it with 
your smith that the frog of the foot shall be allowed to 
come to the ground, if it will. Stand over it and do 
not allow him to touch it. Its use is to pound upon 
the ground, and it is this pounding that is the life of 
the foot. It is the hard and sudden pressure upon the 
frog that promotes the circulation of the blood in the 
hoof, and also keeps in activity the nourishing and the 
absorbing vessels that make up the strong healthy 
hoof. The horseshoers who do not know these things 
ought to quit the business. Most of the foot diseases 
of the horse come from the cuttings down at the 
smithshop. 

The horse cannot travel safely without the use of 
the frog. It is the natural rest of the foot and the 
point of contact between the bony structure and the 
ground. Its elasticity and its rebound at every step 
causes the circulation of the blood to the extremity of 
the hoof. It is also the organ of touch. The horse 
decides by the sensation in the frog as to his safety. 
It is the only part of the hoof that connects with the 
brain through the nervous system, and so it is the 
horse's onhy means of knowing when his foothold is 
safe. If the frog is cut away, or if the shoe is made' 
so thick that it cannot reach the ground, the horse is 
deprived of the power of teeling the ground. He also 
loses the power of adhesion to the ground, except from 
his own weisfht. 



CHAPTER LIII. 

THE HORSE'S AGE BY HIS TEETH. 

The following rules for telling the age of a horse 
by his teeth are generally reliable, though not infalli- 
able, as exceptions will sometimes occur with every 
rule. Up to eight years the age is determined from 
the teeth of the lower jaw. 

Eight to fourteen days after birth, the first middle 
nippers of the set of milk teeth are cut; four to six 
weeks afterwards the next pair to them; after six or 
eight months the next pair, or cutters. 

All these milk teeth have on their front surface 
grooves or furrows, which disappear from the middle 
nippers at the end of one year; from the next pair in 
two years, and from the incisors in three years. 

At the age of two years the middle nippers are shed, 
and in their places appear two permanent teeth with 
deep black cavities, and full, sharp edges. At the age 
of three, the next pair are exchanged for new ones; 
at four years the incisors fall out, and are replaced by 
new ones. At five years old the horse has his perma- 
nent set of teeth. 

As the horse increases in age the teeth grow longer, 
but at the same time are worn away by use about 
one-twelfth of an inch each year, so that the black 
cavities in the middle nippers disappear in the sixth 
year; those of the next pair in the seventh year; and 
those of the incisors in the eighth year. The outer 



THE HORSES AGE BY HIS TEETH. 151 

corner teeth of the upper and lower jaw just meet at 
the age of eight years. 

At nine years old the cups disappear from the two 
middle nippers above, and each of the two upper 
corner teeth has a little sharp protrusion at the outer 
corners. 

At ten the cups disappear from the next two upper 
teeth. 

At eleven the cups disappear from the upper corner 
teeth, and are only indicated by little brown spots. 

From the twelfth to the sixteenth year the oval 
form becomes broader, and grows more and more 
triangular, and with the twentieth year the teeth lose 
all regularity. After this age there is nothing in the 
teeth that will indicate the age of the horse, or justify 
the most experienced examiner in giving an opinion. 

The tusks are cut between the third and fourth 
year; their points become more and more rounded un- 
til the ninth year, when they lose all regularity of 
shape. Mares frequently have no tusks. 



PART SIXTH. 



FAMOUS HORSES. 



CHAPTER LIV. 

rysdyk's hambletonian. 

The celebrated Messenger has had fitting mention 
in Chapter xli. Rysdyk's Hambletonian carries the 
palm as Messenger's most illustrious descendant. A 
strong effusion of Messenger blood, from the lines of 

/ -., , • ( Messenger. 

r Mambnno 4 -~ , to c , 

[ Abdallah J I JJam by sauerkraut. 

( Amazonia. 

RYSDYK'S , 

HAMBLETONIAN -i [Imported Bell-Founder. 



| Charles KentMare-{ ( Hambletonian. 

| One Eye -< (By Messenger.) 
(_ ( Dam by Messenger. 

both sire and dam, centered in him. He was foaled 
May 5, 1849, the property of Jonas Seeley, Jr., in 
Orange County, N. Y. Mr. William Rysdyk, a 
neighbor, bought both dam and colt, when the foal 
was five weeks old, for $125. Mr. Rysdyk was then 
a poor man, and there was nothing in the colt to pre- 
dict the coming fortune. When the colt was well 
broken to harness, the boys took him to the log-rolling 
bees, where, attached to a log-chain, he performed the 
ignoble work of rolling up the great logs. After the 



RYSDYK S HAMBLETONIAN. 1 53 

work was done, and the boys rode their untrained 
nags in scrub races, it was noticed that Rysdyk's 
young horse would always come out ahead. Fame 
came to both colt and owner by the slow process of 
growth. For years before the death of Hambletonian 
in 1876, at the age of twenty-seven, he brought the 
same owner from $20,000 to $30,000 a year. It was 
to him like finding a gold mine in one of his own hills. 
As his wealth grew he bought the next adjoining farm. 
At one time, before he knew his own resources, he 
resolved to sell out farm and stock, and go west. But 
only a few neighbors attended the auction, and no one 
offered a bid for Hambletonian. Finally the owner 
died first, and left no tender bequest to the horse that 
made him rich. The farms were divided up among 
the heirs, and now nearly all these lands have passed 
out of the hands of the family. The famous horse 
went down to his long rest crowned with rare honors. 
He was buried on the old farm, on a hill summit, 
near Chester, N. Y., near the roadside. The 
grave is enclosed in a neat fence and over it is a marble 
slab with this inscription : 

"Rysdyk's Hambletonian. Foaled May 5, 1849. 
Died March 27, 1876." 

Upon the mound a young elm is growing. The 
generosity of strangers built his tomb. His resting 
place is less than three hundeed feet from the stable 
he occupied for a quarter of a century, and where fame 
met and crowned him. 

Leslie E. Macleod, who needs no introduction to 
men who know something of the literature of the turf, 
says in the Patent Office Report for 1887: ■ 



154 HORSE EDUCATION. 

" Rysdyk's Hambletonian was far and away the 
greatest of all trotting progenitors. He founded a 
trotting family with which none can compare, and to 
which none can approach, and his blood, it is said, 
' raised the trotting horse of America, to the high- 
est point of excellence,' " Among the progeny of this 
fine horse, Dexter was the paragon of trotters. 

When it is said that " the introduction of Messenger 
enhanced the value of American horses to the amount 
of $100,000,000," it is distinctly understood that no 
descendant of Messenger contributed so much to this 
increase of value of the American horse as did Rysdyk's 
Hambletonian. His blood runs along every trotting 
track in all the land. So did he impress himself upon 
his progeny that thousands of horses bear some re- 
semblance to him that are only distantly related. For 
a horse to stand in the line of descent from him, other 
things being favorable, is itself a certificate of speed. 



CHAPTER LV. 

NUTWOOD. (600) 2:i8^. 

On the adjoining page will be found a good likeness 
of the celebrated horse, Nutwood, of a still rising 
fame. The gentlemanly owners are Messers. H. L. 
and F. D. Stout, of the Highland Stock Farm, Du- 
buque, Iowa. Nutwood is of a chestnut color, 15. 3 
hands high; weighs 1,160 lbs., foaled May 1, 1870. 

As a sketch of this fine horse would certainly be 
interesting to horsemen everywhere, a few points of 
his character are given here by permission of his own- 
ers. Mr. J. H. Wallace, who is the highest authority 
in this country, says in Wallace 's Monthly. " Nutwood 
when compared with others, point by point, is certainly 
the equal, if not the superior, of any trotting sire in 
the worldo" 

The Kentucky Stock/arm says: "In conformation 
and disposition Nutwood is simply perfection." As 
there are many things in this horse that are unsur- 
passed, it is a matter of public interest to give some of 
his characteristics. In October, 1889, he had an ag- 
gregate of thirty-one in the list of 2 : 30 or better, and 
seven of his colts trot in 2 : 20 or less. Two of his 
sons have sired four in the 2 : 30 list. One has a rec- 
ord of 2 : 16 y 2 and a grand-daughter of his has a record 
of 2: 19^. His dam, Miss Russell, dam of Maud S. 
2: 08^, ranks all the great brood mares as a producer 
of extreme speed. It is believed that no sire has sur- 



I56 HORSE EDUCATION. 

passed him, if any ever equaled him, in respect to the 
impressiveness with which he stamps upon his prog- 
eny his own characteristics which also strongly mark his 
family. 

Except to state bare recorded facts of what Nut- 
wood is, little need be said. Individually he is excel- 
lent, of superior conformation, of good size, with re- 
markable substance combined with finish and quality. 
He has the best of legs, sound and clean, and good 
feet. He has an even, gentle temper, and is kind and 
intelligent in disposition. That he produces these 
characteristics, as well as great natural speed, in his 
offspring, is best known to those most closely acquaint- 
ed with him and them. The lines that all intelligent 
breeders recognize as the best from Rysdyk's Hamble- 
tonian, the greatest progenitor, are those through 
George Wilkes and Alexander's Abdallah. They are 
the lines that produce greatness not only in one gener- 
ation, but through successive generations, and stand 
above all others. Nutwood is, by the records, the 
oest living representative of the Alexander's Abdallah 
line. 

A good test of the value of blood is the price it 
brings. Before the dispersal sale at Glenview, fifty- 
one colts and fillies by Nutwood, two years old and 
under, were sold by private sale, and by auction, at an 
average of $1,307.50, and those sold for twelve 
months previous to that sale averaged $1,728.26 each 
in cash. At the great sale itself, sixty-eight head of 





^ W^lftVtfr 




NUTWOOD. 157 

Nutwood's produce, sold under the hammer for an 
average of $1,570. Twenty-seven of these were 
weanlings and averaged $1,350 each, and the year- 
lings averaged $2,281. The highest to that time paid 
for a weanling was the $4,000 paid for the daughter 
of Nutwood and Mattie Graham. At Glenview, at 
the auction, Cherrywood, weanling, by Nutwood, sold 
for $3,025, and at auction, another weanling, Delphos, 
by Nutwood, was sold for $3,750, and another was 
sold at private sale for $4,000, which up to that date 
was the highest price ever paid for a weanling. 
These figures need no comment. 



CHAPTER LVI. 

THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS MARE. 

M. Buffon wrote a century ago that the horse pos- 
sesses, along with grandeur of stature, the greatest 
elegance and proportion of parts, compared with 
animals immediately above or below him. The head 
of the lion is too large, the limbs of the ox are too 
slender and too short, the camel is deformed. He has 
not the air of imbecility as the ass, nor that of stupid- 
ity as the ox; and the grosser animals, as the elephant 
and rhinoceros, may be considered as rude and shape- 
less masses. 

An older, and more quaint writer, gathers for the 
horse the excellencies of every graceful and handsome 
creature, and of each, three qualities: Three of the 
lion, viz., countenance, intrepidity and fire; three of a 
bullock, viz., eye, nostril and joint; three of a sheep, 
viz., the nose, gentleness and patience; three of a mule, 
viz., foot, constancy and strength; three of a deer, viz., 
head, leg and swiftness; three of a wolf, viz., throat, 
neck and hearing; three of a fox, ear, tail and trot; 
three of a serpent, memory, sight and turning; three 
of a hare or cat, running, walking and suppleness. 

We risk little or nothing in saying that Miss Rus- 
sel, by Pilot Junior, of Woodburn Farm, Spring Sta- 
tion, Ky., embodies more of this catalogue of qualities, 
with the power to reproduce them, than any other liv- 
ing mare. She is a grey, foaled 1865, and at three 



THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS MARE. 1 59 

years old trotted in 2 : 44. She was taken from the 
track to the breeding farm, and in 1870 her first colt 
was Nutwood, 2 : 18^, described in preceding chap- 
ter. Cora Belmont, her second, has a record of 
2:24^. Her third, Maud S., 2 : 08^, has the fastest 
record ever made. Nutbourne, 2: 267^, is owned by 
Robert Bonner. Most of her family of colts are un- 
trained on the track, but they are no less valuable as 
producers of speed. Among them is Lord Russell, 
full brother to Maud S. The only son of Lord Rus- 
sel now in Illinois or in the west, so far as we know, 
is Sandwich, the property of H. C. Graves & Sons, of 
Sandwich, 111. Sandwich is son of Lord Russell, who 
is full brother of Maud S., both having for sire Harold, 
and both having for dam, Miss Russell. 

In the summer of 1889 when Miss Russell was 
twenty-four years old, her seventeenth colt was follow- 
ing her in the Woodburn pastures, and a footing up of 
the values of her large and popular family, showed at 
that time an aggregate current value of $300,000. 
It is not likely that for character and for market value, 
any one mare's colts have ever equaled those of Miss 
Russell. 



CHAPTER LVII. 

A HORSE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. 

Was there ever a perfect horse ? There was a per- 
fect man once whose name was Job. There was one 
animal of the horse kind, absolutely perfect in mind, 
and body, and in movement; at least so a graphic 
writer makes it in the Atlantic Monthly, for April, 
1869. It is from the facile pen of W. H. H. 
Murray — Adirondack Murray. It gives the experi- 
ence of an officer of our army, in the battle of Malvern 
Hill, who lay in a clump of trees, wounded, during 
most of the havoc of that bloody day. The wounded 
officer tells the story: 

" I saw, from where I lay, a riderless horse break out 
of the confused and flying mass, and, with mane and 
tail erect and spreading nostril, come dashing obliquely 
down the slope. Over fallen steeds and heaps of the 
dead she leaped with a motion as airy as that of the 
flying fox, when, fresh and unjaded, he leads away 
from the hounds. So this riderless mare came vault- 
ing along, with action so free and motion so graceful, 
amid that storm of bullets, that whirlwind of fire and 
lead. So she came careering toward me as only a 
riderless horse might come. Her head flung widely 
from side to side, her nostrils widely spread, her flank 
and shoulders flecked with foam, her eye dilating. 
I forgot my wound and the wild roar of battle, and lift- 
ing mvself to a sitting posture, I gave her a ringing 



A HORSE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. l6l 

cheer." 

" No sooner had my voice sounded than she flung 
her head with a proud upward movement into the air, 
swerved sharply to the left, neighed as she might to 
her master from her stall, and came trotting directly 
up to where I lay, and pausing, looked down upon me 
as if in compassion. I spoke again and held out my 
hand caressingly. She pricked her ears, took a step 
forward and lowered her nose until it came in contact 
with my palm, as if to court and to appreciate human 
tenderness." 

" In weight she might have turned, when well con- 
ditioned, nine hundred and fifty pounds. In color she 
was a dark chestnut, with a velvety depth and soft 
look about the hair indescribably rich and elegant. 
Many a time have I heard ladies dispute the shade 
and the hue of her plush-like coat as they ran their 
white, jeweled fingers through her silken hair. Her 
body was round in the barrel, and perfectly symmet- 
rical. She was wide in the haunches; without projec- 
tion of the hip-bones, upon which the shorter ribs 
seemed to lap. High in the withers as she was, the 
line of her back and neck perfectly curved, while her 
deep, oblique shoulders and long thick forearm, ridgy 
with swelling sinews, suggested the perfection of 
stride and power. Her knees across the pan were 
wide, the cannon-bone below them short and thin ; 
the pastern long and sloping; her hoofs round, dark, 
shiny and well set on. Her mane was a shade darker 
than her coat, fine and thin; her ears sharply pointed, 
delicately curved, nearly black around the borders, 
and as tremulous as the leaves of an aspen. Her neck 
ii 



1 62 HORSE EDUCATION. 

rose from the withers to the head in perfect curvature, 
hard, devoid of fat, and well cut under the chops. Her 
nostrils were full, very full, and thin almost as parch- 
ment. The eyes from which tears might fall, or fire 
flash, were well brought out, soft as a gazelle's, almost 
human in intelligence, while over the small bony 
head, over neck and shoulders, yea, over the whole 
body and clean down to the hoofs, the veins stood out 
as if the skin were but tissue paper, against which the 
warm blood pressed, and which it might at any mo- 
ment burst asunder. ' A perfect animal,' I said to my- 
self, as I lay looking over her, — 'an animal which 
might have been born from the wind and the sunshine, 
so swift and so cheerful she seemed— an animal which 
a man would present as his choicest gift to the woman 
he loved, and yet one which that woman, wife, or lady- 
love, would give him to ride when honor and life de- 
pended on bottom and speed.' " 



CHAPTER LVIII. 

THE COMING HORSE. 

A brilliant writer in the Horseman, who hides his 
personalty behind the initials L. D. H., gave in 1889, 
the following racy sketch of " the coming horse." It 
is full of suggestions as to the horse to raise and the 
horse to buy. 

" 'A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse.' The 
world has ever been quick to recognize the « man on 
horseback,' and the possessor of a horse has always 
been considered a fortunate individual. No other 
agency has cut so important a figure in the conquest 
of the world. The estimation in which the horse has 
been held has marked the degree of the intelligence 
and civilization of the owner. As the world advances 
in progress, so his value and appreciation moves up in 
the scale of the animal kingdom." 

" From being a prime article of necessity, he has ad- 
vanced to the proud position of elegance, luxury, taste 
and power." 

" He has caused streets to be paved, drives to be 
laid out, tracks to be improved, costly palaces to be 
built, the wilderness transformed into fields of green 
and gold, and nature to take a new dress. Amphithe- 
aters have been constructed, art and science, skill and 
nerve have vied with each other in developing form, 
beauty, endurance and speed." 

" Steam and electricity have relieved him of many 



164 HORSE EDUCATION. 

of his former burdens, inventive genius has elevated 
his being, civilization has ennobled him. His compan- 
ions of the past have been the stable-boy and groom; 
the future brings to his quarters the best culture of the 
world. The latest invention, the last improvement, 
the best treatment when well, the most intelligent 
care when sick." 

" Not only his appearance, but his comfort and well- 
being are now being considered; his teeth, his eyes and 
feet are all receiving the utmost attention." 

" ' The tamer,' ' the breaker,' the brute and the 
quack are all things of the past. The educator, the 
expert driver, the veterinary surgeon are come. Bru- 
tality and force are dead; love and tenderness are alive. 
Superstition and ignorance valued animals for what 
they were supposed to be worth; culture and intelli- 
gence appreciate them for what they are." 

" Cruelty and bad treatment are punished by law. 
He who dares to abuse this noble fellow shall be treat- 
ed as a criminal and punished as he deserves to be. 
Not only are his past services being better appreciated, 
but his old age is being respected and cared for." 

" He has been frightened by the noise of the steam 
whistle and the brass band; in the future he will pay 
no attention to this turmoil and noise. He will know 
that man is his friend, and means nothing but good to 
him." 

" Think of the well defined classes of horses for the 
-future, — the farm, the road, the draft, the coach, the 
gentleman, the family, and not the least if the last, the 
race and the trot." 

" The coming horse will be the ' special purpose; ' 



THE COMING HORSE. 1 65 

the general purpose horse has had his day." 

" The farmer has no use for the mountains of flesh 
and muscle that could move logs and stones of great 
weight, that could drag steam engines and threshing 
machines through mud and over bad roads, that could 
draw reapers and mowers that mired in the fields by 
reason of their great w r eight and immense draft» His 
demands are for horses of lighter weight, that can re- 
spond to the quick clatter and movement of better and 
easier running machinery, light but easy running plows 
and other farming tools; horses that are not easily 
frightened, that can be controlled by the word instead 
of the lines while the driver's attention is directed to 
his machine. Intelligent men demand intelligent 
beasts, and they will have them. Horses that can be 
educated to get the best results out of the machines and 
at the same time have the qualities of speed that make 
them desirable for road purposes, if the opportunity 
come to change them from the farm to the road. The 
horse bred for the especial purpose of doing light work 
can pull a top buggy as well as a sulky plow, can be 
driven to church and the picnic, can be stylish and 
have speed enough to make him the pride of the fam- 
ily, that will make the boys and the girls delight to 
have their city cousins come and take an airing in the 
country, and cause them to want to get home from 
school and the dirt and dust of the city to enjoy the 
drive down by the old familiar places of their child- 
hood. The coming horse for the farm is a special 
purpose horse of good size with plenty of form and 
finish." 

" There is the coming horse for the business man 



1 66 HORSE EDUCATION. 

who must attend to his business and depend upon his 
wife taking the children out in the country for an air- 
ing; a horse that is not frightened at anything, that 
will stand anywhere, that cares not a straw for mov- 
ing trains, flying newspapers, road engines, and all the 
other things that frighten the family horse, and in nine 
cases out of ten make him of very little account in the 
absence of the head of the family. Then the delivery 
horse, that stands any place without hitching, and 
knows just what to do in any case if other horses 
lose their heads and run away; that sees no proces- 
sions, takes no account of brass bands, elevated roads r 
and the turmoil of large cities." 

"It would take too long to name all of the good 
qualities of the special purpose horse of all classes; 
suffice it to say, that if the far-seeing man will take 
these conditions into consideration and breed for spe- 
cial purposes, he will not only be happier, but put 
money in his purse." 

" There are thousands of dollars spent annually for 
the pleasure of seeing a horse-race, but there are mil- 
lions that would be paid for horses if the especial horse 
could be purchased." 



CHAPTER LIX. 

BEST TROTTING RECORDS. 

This record is made up to October 15, 1889, and it 
must be held liable to correction any day. Owners of 
this book who desire this chapter to be a true record 
for coming time must correct names and dates when 
any faster horses develop speed. It is confidently pre* 
dieted that a mile will be trotted in 2 : 00 before 1900. 

One mile — Maud S., Cleveland, Ohio, July 30, 1885, 
2:08^. 

Two miles — Fanny Witherspoon, Chicago, 111., 
September 25, 1885, 4:43. 

Three miles — Huntress, Prospect Park, Long 
Island, June 23, 1872, 7:21^. 

Four miles — Trustee, Union Course, Long Island, 
June 13, 1849, II: °6. 

Five miles — Lady Mack, San Francisco, California, 
April 2, 1874, i^ 00 - 

Ten miles — Controller, San Francisco, California, 
November 23, 1878, 27:23^. 

Twelve miles — Topgallant, Philadelphia, Pennsyl- 
vania, 1830, 38:00. 

Fifteen miles — Girder, San Francisco, California, 
August 6, 1874, 47:20. 

Twenty miles — Captain McGowan, Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, October 31, 1865, 58:25. 

Fifty miles — Ariel, Albany, New York, 1846, 
3:55:40^. 



1 68 HORSE EDUCATION. 

Hundred miles — Conqueror, Long Island, Novem- 
ber 12, 1853, 8:55:53. 

Fastest of stallion — -Axtell, Indianapolis, Indiana, 
October 9, 1889, 2:12. 

Fastest of mare — Maud S., Cleveland, Ohio, July 
30, 1885, 2:08^. 

Fastest of Gelding — Jay-Eye-See, Philadelphia, 
August 15, 1884, 2:10. 

Fastest of two-year-old — Sunol, filly, San Francisco, 
October, 1888, 2:18. 

Fastest of three-year-old — Axtell, Indianapolis, 
October 9, 1889, 2: 12. 

Fastest four-year-old — Manzanita, filly, Palo Alto 
farm, California, 1889, 2:16. 



CHAPTER LX. 

THE MULE. 

The best mules are produced from the male of the 
ass kind and the female of the horse kind, taking from 
the former a general resemblance in form and patience 
and surefootedness; and from the latter, vigor, strength 
and courage. He is more easily kept than a horse; 
perhaps, because one line of his ancestry has for ages 
browsed on sterile mountains or searched over sandy 
deserts for his scanty food. We also attribute his 
sureness of foot and his facility in climbing or descend- 
ing mountains to the character of the ancestral ass 
that climbs over precipices, as surefooted as the 
mountain goat, and that picks his meager food from 
the most frightful declivities. 

The mule is of little use till he is four years old ; his 
usefulness begins later than that of the horse, but it 
lasts longer, as he will endure, if treated reasonably 
well, twenty, thirty or even forty years. His size 
varies in different countries. In regions where both 
his ancestors are small in stature he is often no larger 
than a Newfoundland dog; but where the conditions 
of best "size are met, he reaches fifteen or sixteen 
hands in height, or even more. 

The first jacks for breeding purposes were intro- 
duced into the United States by George Washington, 
on his farm, in the fine climate of Virginia; the very 
large animals presented him by some of the monarchs 



170 HORSE EDUCATION. 

of Europe, produced very large and strong mules of 
which the general was very proud. 

The mule has not always been excluded from hon- 
orable place. Anciently kings and princes rode upon 
mules, and to this day in Spain mules draw the royal 
carriage, and a fine mule costs there more than a fine 
horse. The best mules in Europe are found in Spain, 
Italy and Malta. In America the # best are produced 
in Kentucky and Missouri, where the mule-producing 
farms find profit in employing mares that are good, 
both in blood and for size, in producing mules. 

In this country the indications are that the use of 
the mule will become more common, and that as his 
price advances the profit in his rearing will increase. 
The expense of raising mules is far less than that of 
raising colts. The skin is harder than that of the 
horse, and hence he will better resist the effects of sun,, 
or rain, or cold. He is easily fed; he can carry or 
draw, can climb or descend mountains safely; he is free 
from the common equine diseases. He is especially 
valuable for military use, being preferred for all the 
uses of the army except for the cavalry. In our war 
in the south the horses gradually left the transporta- 
tion service, the ambulances and the hospital trains, 
and were replaced by mules. In the war in Abys- 
sinia the English found a fatal malaria that cut down 
their horses by the thousands, but which did not harm 
their mules. 

The carrying power of the mule exceeds that of 
the horse. The estimate of his burden for a day's 
journey is 30 per cent of his own weight, but in the 
copper mines of the Andes he has oftener to carry 40- 



THE MULE. 171 

per cent of his weight, climbing around precipices 
within a foot's distance from the death line. 

For breeding purposes the dam should be selected 
with the greatest care. She should have small head, 
round body, short back, wide chest, large thighs and 
arms, long neck, wide and round hoofs and should be 
at least fourteen, or better fifteen hands or more. 
The mule inherits shape and peculiarities of sire and 
size from the mare, but very rarely her bad shape or 
unsoundness. Mares that are unsound, or defective 
in shape so as to be unfit for horse breeding, may pro- 
duce good mules. 

In general the methods by which a horse is con- 
trolled and trained apply equally to his half brother, 
the mule. 

Are the best shaped mules raised in Missouri or 
Kentucky? To this question The A merican A gricid- 
turist replies: "Undoubtedly Kentucky carries off the 
palm in this respect, as the breeding of mules has been 
long conducted there. There are many intelligent mule 
breeders in Missouri, but the Kentucky stock has the 
general preference. Kentucky mules upon an average, 
are worth $10 per head more than the Missouri mules, 
from the fact that they are better bred. There is more 
thoroughbred blood diffused among the horse stock 
generally of Kentucky and Tennessee than in any 
other states in the Union, thus giving a better class of 
mares to breed from than can be found outside of these 
two states. On the other hand the blood of the Clyde 
and Percheron mixed with the coarse Canadian is the 
foundation of a large number of the brood mares in 
the northwest. They produce large, coarse, sluggish 



172 HORSE EDUCATION. 

mules, not to be compared to the somewhat smaller, 
but clean-limbed, active, high-spirited mules out of 
well-bred Kentucky mares. No animal shows the 
effects of good breeding more readily or to greater 
advantage than a mule." 

From the United State census of 1880 we have some 
indication of the value of mules produced in this 
country, and the proportions, as between the mule- 
producing states: 

Kansas, $5,816,067; Arkansas, $6,527,584; South 
Carolina, $6,599,767; Texas, $7,527,765; North Car- 
olina, $7,541,876; Kentucky, 8,611,656; Alabama, 
$10,109,630; Illinois, $10,187,852: Mississippi, $10,- 
9 I S»397; Georgia, $12,947,842; Missouri, $13,254,356; 
Tennessee, $13,410,216. This gives an aggregate 
of value of mules, at taxation rates of estimate, of 
$113,440,008, in 1880. The actual, saleable value 
would probably double these figures, and the almost 
ten years elapsed since 1880 would very largely in- 
crease it. 

Horses are not produced in the same proportions as 
mules. Here are the numbers of horses as reported 
in 1880 in six states: Pennsylvania, 533, 587; Missouri, 
667, 776; Ohio, 736, 478; Iowa, 792, 322; Texas, 805, 
606; Illinois, 1,023,082. Total number of mules in 
United States in 1880, 18,12,081. Total of horses, 
10,357,488. 



CHAPTER LXI. 

THE SHETLAND PONY. 

The beautiful little horse that takes its name from 
one of the islands west of Scotland, is very serviceable 
on its native hills, but it is in other countries a mere 
plaything. They sprang from the Norway horse. 
They never go under a roof summer or winter, and 
they eat only the scanty herbage picked up from the 
wild soil. They are seldom over thirty-six to forty in- 
ches in height, but are full of spirit and can endure fatigue 
well. Large numbers of ponies are exported, so that 
they are worth now fifty to sixty dollars each. The 
smaller ones if well proportioned, bring the best prices. 

The Aberdeen Free Press says that the prevailing 
color of the true Shetland ponies is brown, and there 
are also a number of black ponies among them. Com- 
pared with the native ponies from Iceland and North 
Faroe, which are sometimes offered as real Shetland- 
ers, they are much finer in the head, which is small 
and handsome. They are capable of great endurance, 
especially in their native country, and in the days when 
the stallions were more largely used in the mines than 
they are now, some of them have been known to live 
for twenty years below ground. Shetland ponies have 
become very popular in America, and are being bred 
on the ranches. It is doubtful if, when removed from 
their native soil, these hardy little animals will main- 
tain the ancient characteristics of the breed. 



1 74 HORSE EDUCATION. 

The Shetlander ought to be popular as taking the 
place of goats for the little carriages of boys, and they 
do serviceable work in small wagons and carriages; 
they are such dolls, and so gentle and spirited that 
they make a beautiful team. Of late there is a good 
deal of attention given to tracing the pedigree of the 
pony directly back to Shetland. Hon. Lewis Steward, 
of Piano, 111., drives a pair of these animals that are 
never check-reined or shod, are never sick, never wear 
blinders, and the moment they enter the road they 
spring into a fast run which never intermits till their 
short journey is done. The same pair has worked in 
that way for ten or twelve years. They are uncom- 
monly hardy. A judicious mixture of pony blood 
makes a very hardy and gentle little horse. 

Bell's Messenger says : " The need there is for pre- 
serving the purity and characteristics of the breed is 
being more generally recognized, and the action which 
is being taken with this object in view has probably 
been quickened by the popularity which Shetland po- 
nies have gained in America. Strangers to the breed 
are said to have been largely imposed upon by dealers, 
who, as already stated, palm off Icelanders and North 
Faroe islanders for the real Shetland ponies. The 
average height of the ponies from North Faroe island 
is about forty-eight inches, and that of the Iceland 
ponies about fifty inches — a fact which in itself should 
help buyers to distinguish between the different 
breeds; and besides it should not be forgotten that the 
Shetland ponies carry by far the prettiest heads." 

The little Shetland horse is evidently traceable, as 
we have said, to the Norway horse. The effect of 



THE SHETLAND PONY. 1 75 

hard climate and scanty food records itself in the di- 
minutive stature and the hardiness of what is now the 
native pony of Shetland. 

There is a similar change that has come upon the 
horse kind in our own country. On the north-east 
coast of Virginia, five miles from the mainland, there 
is an island of perhaps five or six townships in extent, 
called Chincoteague. It is the only place in the United 
States where an entirely untamed herd of native 
ponies can be found, wild as mustangs. As to how 
they came there, tradition has almost forgotten. The 
Indians used to tell that a ship loaded with horses, on 
the way to the Elizabethan settlements of Virginia, 
over two hundred and fifty years ago, was wrecked 
on that island, and the horses escaped to the island, 
and the crew to the mainland. Left to themselves, 
they have degenerated into the small, but not ill- 
formed ponies, that have never yet surrendered to 
either saddle or harness. 

The American pony hive of Chincoteague awaits 
the exploration of some pony-trainer, who can furnish 
us with an American edition of a toy horse that is 
beautiful, strong and hardy. 



PART SEVENTH. 

DISEASES OF THE HORSE AND REMEDIES. 



CHAPTER LXII. 

THE HEALTH OF THE HORSE. 

Buffon, the naturalist, writing a little over a hun- 
dred years ago, laments that no educated man takes 
care of the health of horses. Better times for horse 
flesh are upon us when we have schools and hospitals 
for instruction as to equine diseases. Scores of news- 
papers contain a column, weekly, on the care and cure 
of horses. The result is already that the life and use- 
fulness of the horse are much prolonged. The horse's 
natural age is about thirty years and he ought to be in 
his prime from ten to twenty. 

Good food and shelter come first as the means of 
preventing disease. The unsheltered and half-fed 
horses of Iceland and Northern Russia are always 
under size. It was the great strength of the well-fed 
Norman horses against the ponies of the Britains that 
decided the battle of Hastings in 1066, and let in the 
Normans. The colt that is under-fed and half-starved 
for his first three years is never half a horse after- 
wards. If a horse is given free range he will select 
only healthful food, and he will sagaciously select 
remedies for his disorders, if the cure is within his 



THE HEALTH OF THE HORSE. 1 77 

reach. On the contrary an ass will eat everything, so 
that there has grown up a saying, " The best physi- 
cian is a horse and the best apothecarian an ass." If 
you will put rock salt and a rock of chalk in his 
manger, he will relish his food every day with salt as 
you do yourself, and he will take of the chalk when 
he has a sour stomach. What would your boarder 
think of you if you were to give him salt and pepper 
and sugar only on Sunday mornings, and then mix up 
in his pancakes enough to last him a week as you do 
for your horse? Infrequent and irregular feed and 
water will make him gluttonous. The camel, that 
travels for days without water, drinks a barrelful when 
he gets it. 

The stable should be airy, with windows not always 
open nor always shut, nor should the cold wind blow 
on his face or breast. He should not be kept in twi- 
light, on a filthy floor, in a damp den, for sixteen hours 
in twenty-four, where foul air invades the lungs, and 
the odor of ammonia inflames the eyes. The air 
should be dry and sweet and his bed clean. The floor 
ought to be level, with perfect draining. The stall 
should be of the box pattern and not a narrow dun- 
geon. Each horse should have a manger concealed 
from the eyes and the teeth of the next neighbor so 
that he can eat without haste or annoyance. A horse 
that is much out doors is always in motion and the 
elasticity of the sole and frog will keep the foot healthy. 
The horse tied in the stall where he can hardly move 
his feet will soon have them hard, inflamed and brittle, 
his legs will be benumbed and stiff, and he will prob- 
ably be treated for rheumatism or spring halt, and die 

12 



178 HORSE EDUCATION. 

of old age at eleven. If he had a box stall in a lighted, 
clean, ventilated stable with regular food, his years of 
labor would have been double. All animals that 
occupy a bedroom ought to have one large enough to 
lie down in, and that is particularly true of the horse. 

Prevention is better than cure. But accidents will 
happen. Changes of food and water, over-exertion 
and exposure of a creature that has no voice to com- 
plain, will often make a sound horse sick. 

Most of the diseases that afflict horse flesh are 
directly traceable to the carelessness or the ignorance 
of his owner. The foolishly over-estimated horse is 
over-fed, or he is given improper food, or good food 
at irregular or improper times. The driver, ignorant 
of his strength, puts on him excessive labor, or the 
horse is over loaded or over driven, and the owner 
meets with loss of service and then with loss of proper- 
ty. Every horse in a veterinary hospital, and thou- 
sands more, can certify to the carelessness or stupidity 
of drivers. The certificate is written on hides, nerves, 
muscles and bones. All the common diseases are 
traceable to carelessness, ignorance or cruelty, such as 
colic, corns, curbs, farcy, heaves, poll-evil, quarter- 
crack, ringbone, scratches, splint, spavin, string-halt, 
sweeny, and fifty more. The greatest puzzle of the 
horse doctor is how best to rescue the dumb beast 
from his oppressor. If your horse is young and 
healthy now it will be a sin and a shame to you if he 
shall ever need a doctor, until he lies down to his last 
and welcome sleep. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 

There are two classes of complaints among horses, 
viz: the obvious and the concealed. We shall treat of 
them in this order, considering first the complaints 
which appeal to the eye of the spectator, amply and at 
once defining themselves, at first sight. When the 
horse suffers from such maladies the spectator can 
understand the trouble and in the moment define it 
accurately. When a man buys a horse or trades for 
one, blind or lame, or curbed, or that has ringbone, 
poll-evil, or wind galls, the courts have held that he 
has no redress. He must use his eyes or bear his own 
loss. One who discerns the simpler and evident ail- 
ments of his horses, and applies the best remedies will 
often save the use of a horse, or perhaps his life. Such 
a man will soon acquire a small drugstore of remedies. 
The following pages are intended for his guide. He 
should obtain a good sized bottle to hold his medicine, 
paste on it the name of the malady to be remedied, and 
the name and quantity of each ingredient, and the dose. 
When the necessity shall have passed, put away the 
medicine so carefully prepared, what is left of it, and it 
is ready at a moment's notice. Of course this only ap- 
plies to such remedies as do not become injured with 
standing. No one must suppose that this book will 
make every man a horse-doctor, but these hints may 
save the life of many a fine horse. 



l8o HORSE EDUCATION. 

REMEDIES OF OBVIOUS APPLICATION. 

i. Brittle and Contracted Hoofs. 

One part tar oil and two parts whale oil. Mix. 
Apply to whole sole of the foot, and all over the foot 
up to the hair. 

2. Healing Mixture. 

These preparations are especially for indolent sores. 
Apply twice daily. 

One fourth ounce carbolic acid, four ounces tincture 
of arnica, two ounces glycerine. Mix. 

3. For Proud Flesh. 

In case there is proud flesh use this: Pulverized 
camphor one dram, prepared chalk six drams, burnt 
alum four drams. Mix. Sprinkle over the sore. 

4. Galls from Saddle or Harness, or Bruises. 

Tincture opium five ounces, tannin two drams, 
glycerine one ounce. Apply twice a day. 

5. Liniments. 

This is for use upon any swollen part of a horse, for 
sprains or bruises, but not where the skin is broken. 
These liniments should be preceded and followed with 
much rubbing by the hand. 

Equal parts of alcohol, chloroform, aqua ammonia, 
Jamaica rum and water. Mix, apply. 

6. For Soreness in Muscles and Cords. 

Hydrate of chloral and tincture camphor, of each 
half ounce, oil cedar and oil hemlock of each two 
ounces, spirits nitre four ounces, alcohol eight ounces. 
Apply, with rubbing twice daily. 



REMEDIES FOR DISEASES OF THE HORSE. Ibl 

7. A Liniment Good for all Sprains. 

Half pint linseed oil, half pint turpentine, four 
ounces oil origanum. Shake well and it is ready for 
use. 

8. Bruises or Cuts on Horse or Man. 

Tincture of arnica one ounce, sassafras oil one half 
ounce, laudanum one ounce. Mix. Shake well, ban- 
dage lightly, keep wet with the mixture. 

9. Sore Mouth and Lips. 

Borax one ounce, tannin one-fourth ounce, 
glycerine eight ounces. Mix and apply two or three 
times a day with a swab. 

10. To Stop Bleeding. 

If you can get hold of the artery or vein, tie it up. 
If not, take 10 grains nitrate of silver and 4 ounces of 
water. Applv to the wound and it will stop bleeding. 

11. String Halt. 

There is no malady of the horse more obvious than 
this defect in the muscles of the thigh. The horse 
does not seem to suffer pain, and he is able to do al- 
most any kind of work. There is no remedy so far 
as is known. 

12. To Promote Growth of Hair. 

Rub the denuded part daily with an ointment of 
carbolic acid one ounce, lard eight ounces. 

13. The Famous Black Liniment. 

To cure stiff joints, sore shoulders, contracted cords, 
galls, cuts, bruises, sprains, burns, chapped hands, salt 
rheum : 



1 82 HORSE EDUCATION. 

Spirits of turpentine one-half pint, raw linseed oil 
one pint, oil of vitriol and oil of wormwood of each 
one-half ounce, tincture of hartshorn one ounce. Mix 
all together well except the vitriol, then add the vitriol, 
which will make it warm, and stir with a pine stick 
till cool. Prepare it in a stone crock, never in tin. 
Never give it inwardly. Some call this the best lini- 
ment in the world. 

14. Cooling Lotion for External Inflammation. 

Muriate of ammonia six ounces, acetate of lead twc 
ounces, acetic acid four ounces, tincture of arnica 
eight ounces. Bathe part affected thoroughly. 

N. B. — It will be observed in these suggestions of 
treatment for the ailments of horses, that bleeding is 
not once recommended. This method of cure is al- 
most entirely discarded among both physicians and 
veterinarians. To send an unskilled operator with a 
sharp lance, after an unresisting creature, is a very 
dangerous thing. 



CHAPTER LXIV. 

DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 

Many diseases have remote or concealed causes. 
The nature of the malady, and of course the remedy, 
must be studied out by carefully investigating the symp- 
toms. It has only too often occurred that a human 
patient has been treated for some disease with which 
he had never been touched. When we treat a dumb 
beast, that cannot with speech aid us in our inquiries,, 
we have only so much the more need of caution in find- 
ing out what is the trouble before we give any medi- 
cine. In a book like this the medical department must 
be very brief. It can only suggest a few hints as to 
treatment. In any serious attack, a larger work should 
be consulted, or the aid of a veterinarian should be in- 
voked without delay. 

No. 15. Ringbone. 

This is bonym atter thrown out from the crown 
bone of the foot. If once begun the tendency is to 
continue to grow. If the growth of bone is examined 
after the death of the horse the new deposit will re- 
semble honey comb. The best success of treatment is 
to stop the growth and to cure the lameness. 

No. 16. Spavin. 

The spavin resembles the ringbone in its nature, 
and is a hard substance which comes out on the inside 
of the hind leg, connected very closely with the lower 



184 



HORSE EDUCATION. 



part of the hock joint. The object of treatment is to 
relieve the severe pain, abating the inflammation, 
and to arrest the growth. It is necessary for the 
horse to rest during treatment. These two diseases, 
similar in nature, require the same treatment. 

In all cases the first method of cure named is the 
one to which I would first resort. If there is another 
given it is one so well recommended that I believe it 
to be worthy of confidence. 

No. 17. For Ringbone and Spavin. 

Aqua Ammonia y 2 Ounce 

Oil Origanum - " " 

Red Precipitate - - " " 

Euphorbium - " " 

Spanish Flies - - - 1 " 

Tinct. Iodine - - - 2 drams 

Lard - ^ pound 

Melt all together and stir till cold. Clip the hair off 
and apply the blister. Grease after two days. You 
can blister three times, one week apart. This is a 
sure cure. 

No. 18. Ringbone and Spavin. 

F. F. F. Ammonia, Spts. Terebinth, Soft Soap, 
equal parts. 

Apply twice per day, for three days, then once per 

day for six days, then stop until scab is shed and if not 

well, repeat. 

No. 19. Curb. 

The curb is thrown out back and below the hock 
joint, seven or eight inches below the joint of the hock. 
It is soft and elastic and comes from a strain. There 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 1 85 

is inflammation with the swelling, and this must be re- 
duced before any effort is made to remove the curb. 
It may be reduced by bathing with cold water or with 
some cooling liniment or lotion. After the inflamma- 
tion has been reduced the swelling will abate under a 
mild blister. 

20. For Cure of Curb. 

Biniodide Mercury - - i Dram 

Lard - i Ounce 

Apply once a day for three days, then rest 
three days and repeat. Good for splints, curbs or 
callouses. 

After a blister is started do not inflame it with 
another blister on top of it, or you will have trouble. 

21. Splint. 

This is a bony accretion on the inside of the front 
leg on the cannon bones, and the best prescription for 
it is the last given above. Splints generally go off 
of themselves unless connected with the knee joint. 

22. Sweeney. 

This is a sinking away of the muscles of the shoul- 
der caused by a slip or a strain or by too large a col- 
lar. The flesh seems to fall in and the powerless 
muscles cannot swing the foot. To cure. 



Alcohol - 


4 Ounces 


Spirits Turpentine 


4 


Tincture Camphor - 


y* 


" Cantharides - 


y 2 « 


" Capsicum - 


Yz " 


Oil of spike - 


3 


Bathe this liniment in with a hot iron. 





1 86 HORSE EDUCATION. 

23. Distemper. 

This is a severe influenza, likely to prevail in the 
spring or in a wet autumn, and generally as an epidem- 
ic. There is with it extreme debility, the pulse is 
weak and a little rapid, mouth hot, eyes and nostrils 
red, belly much contracted, no appetite, some cough, 
the glands of the neck swell. If there is doubt wheth- 
er it is a cold or a distemper, it is better anyhow 
to give the horse rest. Keep him warm and out of 
drafts. Mix bran with very weak lye; if the lye is not 
too strong he will eat readily, and if he has distemper 
he will have a free discharge through the nostrils, and 
health will follow. Give him no water for a few days, 
only a thin gruel. As soon as appetite returns give 
him twice a day a dram of copperas, — sulphate of iron 
— in fine powder. If after taking the bran as directed 
there is no discharge, it is all right, he has only a cold. 

Another method: Use one table-spoonful of oil of 
hemlock — pull out the tongue and put it on the root — 
it saves a drench. Then rub on the glands close up 
to the jaws, a liniment made of cedar oil two ounces, 
amber oil, hemlock oil and gum camphor, of each one 
ounce, salt peter a half ounce, alcohol one pint. 

24. Founder. 

This chiefly affects the feet, and hence is called 
Laminitis. Causes: Eating or drinking when hot, or 
if warm, standing unprotected, in cold draught. Give 
the horse a soft bed of straw or saw-dust. Stand his 
forward feet for four or five hours a day in a tub of 
cold water, or better, stand him for similar time in 
running water till relieved. Give dose of 15 to 20 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 1 87 

drops aconite root, four hours apart, till better. Give 
him rest. Feed grass or wet bran for a few days. If 
the feet become brittle, see remedy on page 180. 
25. The Mange. 

This is nothing but the scab or itch on cattle, dogs 
and horses. It is caused by an insect, a species of 
acarus, that burrows in or upon the skin. It comes 
from contact, though a poor half starved creature often 
sets up a mange farm of his own. The cause general- 
ly is being out hungry in wet weather, over-driving 
with poor cleaning and poor feeding. The disease be- 
trays itself by itching of the skin, falling of the hair, 
little red pimples and scabs spread over the skin. The 
animal becomes feverish, loses flesh, and if uncared 
for will die. 

First clean the stall and stable thoroughly. Sprinkle 
everything in reach with carbolic acid, one ounce in 
one gallon of water. Wash and scrape the harness, 
and rub it with washing soda and water, followed with 
oil and sulphur, one ounce to a pint of oil. Heat the 
curry comb and burn the brush and wiping cloth, and 
whitewash the stall. Give the horse a pint of raw 
linseed oil and repeat in three days. Oil all parts of 
the animal with kerosene and leave it on for twelve 
hours and then wash off with much soap and warm 
water. Apply this: 

Iodine, y 2 Ounce. 

Iodine of Potash, - - * x / 2 " 
Tar, ----- 1 " 

Lard, 8 

Mix. Melt. Apply. Repeal the whole applica- 
tion in one week. 



1 88 HORSE EDUCATION. 

26. Collar Galls. 

These are caused by ill-fitting collars. Any part 
of a badly-adjusted harness will cruelly pain and mark 
up a horse. Adjust the harness well. Apply alcohol 
with all the saltpeter it will dissolve, when the collar 
is put on, or taken off. 

27. Sunstroke. 

The cause of this is excessive exhaustion under great 
heat of the atmosphere. The horse is stupid, or he falls 
unable to rise. To prevent, use a sunshade over the 
forehead under the bridle, or a wet sponge. Cold 
water, or better, a bag of ice laid on the top of his head 
will give relief. Bleeding in the mouth will relieve the 
brain. 

28. Worms. 

Worms are indicated by a craving for food, emacia- 
tion ; mucus comes with the evacuations. Take equal 
quantities of pulverized ginger and copperas, and give a 
tablespoonful twice a day. 

29. Stoppage of Water. 

The horse gives signs of pain, lies down', groans, on 
rising throws his head towards the seat of the pain, fre- 
quent and fruitless efforts to stale. 

Give one ounce sweet spirits of nitre, repeat in half 
an hour if not better, or give five drops tincture of can- 
tharides in a little water every half hour. If neither of 
these is on hand give one tablespoonful of saltpeter 
in half a pint of water. 

30. Appetite Diseased. 
The cause of a morbid appetite is supposed to be a 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 1 89 

want of some important element in the food, or it may- 
be a diseased condition of the digestive organs. It is 
very rare, if ever, that a healthy horse shows a longing 
for a kind of food that would injure him. 

The symptoms of morbid appetite are that the horse 
chews old bones, or eats clay, or gnaws the boards of 
the stall or the manger. 

For remedy give him free range occasionally, or 
take gypsum — common land piaster — four parts, clean 
salt two parts, flour of sulphur one part; mix, and 
keep in a trough or somewhere within reach of the 
animal, for a few days at a time. He will have no need 
for this remedy all the time. 
31. Bots. 

The stomach bot originates in the egg of the bot 
fly, which with a stinging sensation is fastened on the 
horse's fore legs in the pasture or at work, in summer 
time. The horse, unintentionally, snatches these and 
swallows them, and they are hatched into bots in the 
stomach. If the horse is healthy and eats his food 
three times a day, the bots will never injure him. The 
house in which the bots live is agreeable to them and 
it has plenty of food, so that its inhabitants do npt eat 
up the horse. But if the horse is half starved, or if he 
is sick and cannot eat, the bots fasten on the inner 
coats of the stomach and sometimes eat clear through. 
The acids and poisons that will kill the bots will kill 
the horse first. 

The presence of bots is indicated by the horse 
occasionally nipping at his own sides, and also by red 
pimples on the inner surface of the upper lip, easily- 
seen by turning up the lip. 



I9O HORSE EDUCATION. 

Take new milk 1 quart, molasses 1 quart, and give 
the whole amount as soon as the disease is certainly 
known. In 15 minutes after give of warm sage tea 
2 quarts. In 30 minutes after the tea, give 2 to 3 
pints of currier's oil, (according to size of horse;) if 
the oil cannot be had use melted lard, with 3 or 4 ounces 
of salt; if the lard cannot be had, dissolve a double 
handful of salt in 3 pints of warm water and give it all. 

32. For The Eye, To Remove Scum. 

Calomel, - - - 3 Scruples. 

Olive Oil, - - - 1 ounce. 

Belladonna - - - 3 Scruples. 
Apply with a feather twice a day. 

33. Lock-Jaw. 

Apply chloroform to the nose until the jaws fly 
open. Put a gag in the mouth and give two ounces 
tincture of assafetida every six hours, and a dose of 
physic. If not too late this will cure. 

34. To Make Ointment Like Sloan's. 

Take mutton tallow four pounds, beeswax half' a 
pound, turpentine three ounces. Melt over a slow 
fire, and when nearly cold add the turpentine and you 
will have the ointment that is sold for everything. 

35. To Make A White Star. 

Take a knife and shave the hair off. Put oil of vit- 
riol on the spot that is intended to be white, with a 
feather. 

$6. Lampers. 

Bleed or scarify the gums, never burn. It only 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. I9I 

makes matters worse. Give a bran mash, and rub the 
gums with salt. 

37. — Flatulent or Wind Colic. 

This disease is sudden in its attacks, very common, 
and sometimes fatal. The celebrated horse, Messen- 
ger, died of it in 1828, and so has many a fine horse 
since. It must be carefully distinguished from inflam- 
mation of the bowels. It has many causes, as drinking 
cold water while in a heated condition, a change of 
feed from dry to green or the reverse, being washed 
with cold water while hot, unwholesome food or too 
much acid in the stomach. 

Horses fed on corn are most liable to this windy 
colic, also those fed on green food, both of which sub- 
stances ferment readily in the stomach. The disten- 
tion is so rapid that sometimes death occurs in half an 
hour. 

The symptoms are, the attack is sudden, pain i s 
evidently great, there are intervals of rest, motion 
gives relief, he paws violently and shifts his position 
constantly. The pulse is normal, extremities are of 
natural temperature, he throws himself with great force, 
ineffectual efforts to stale, he snaps at his sides with his 
teeth, a cold sweat comes out on him, with unusual 
distention of the abdomen. Remedy: 
Fluid Extract Aconite - 1 Ounce 

" " Belladonna - - 1 " 

" " Colocynth - 1 " 

Mix. Dose: One teaspoonful in two ounces of water 
Repeat the dose in one hour, if not better. If you 
have to give a third dose, wait this time for two hours. 



I92 HORSE EDUCATION. 

The use of large quantities of hot water injections 
will often bring away volumes of wind, giving relief 
and facilitating a cure. The horse is liable to injury 
by lying down or rolling. Do not expose him to the 
causes of colic for some time after recovery. 

If colic is preceded by constipation of the bowels, do 
not give these remedies till after injecting gallons of 
warm water, or a gallon of gruel containing a quart of 
castor oil. Until the bowels are opened relief cannot 
arrest the spasms of the muscular coat of the intestines. 

38. Heaves. 

Heaves is a common name for any difficulty of 
breathing in a horse, and it is often caused by a rup- 
ture or enlargement of the cells of the lungs. A cure 
is generally believed to be impossible, and yet some- 
times the horse recovers and the disease can be so con- 
trolled that the horse can do good farm service for 
years. If given all the dry food he will take and then 
all the cold water he wants he is useless. As this 
disease is never found in racing stables, the inference is 
that it results from vicious feeding, or in some want 
of care. Feed no musty or dirty hay, very little hay 
of any kind. Horses have been reported cured on 
four pounds of timothy hay, and three quarts of feed 
of equal quantites of oats, corn and wheat bran, with a 
little salt. Put in the feed, once a week a dram of sul- 
phate of iron and half an ounce of ground gentian root. 

A very successful horseman declares this to be a 
sure cure for heaves: Give daily twelve drops of oil of 
tar in the oats or mash and one teaspoonful of pulverized 
rosin in his feed at the same time. Also give twelve 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 1 93 

drops of sulphuric acid in half a bucket of water daily 
and let him drink it. In sixty days the horse will be 
well. Wet his hay or straw. 

39. Corns. 

Corns appear only in the angle of the sole near 
where the crust and the bar meet. The cause is im- 
proper shoeing, or wearing the shoe too long. The 
horse extends the pained foot resting on the toe and 
gives other signs of pain. On cutting the corn there 
will appear a spot, or if the corn is bad it will be a dark 
purple. Apply remedies for softening the hoof, see 
preceding chapter, cut out the corn so as to remove 
all pressure, rest the horse, take off his shoes. Apply 
daily a lotion of chloride of zinc one dram, glycerine 
two ounces, water six ounces. 

40. Grease Heels. 

This disease so much resembles the scratches that 
one may be mistaken for the other. In this there is a 
white, disagreeable, greasy-like discharge from the 
heels, and the skin is hot, sore and swollen. It is com- 
mon to horses that are over-fed, or that want exer- 
cise, or that stand, or that work, in the wet. 

Treatment: Keep the legs and feet dry, and al- 
so clean with castile soap and soft warm water, dry 
afterwards. 

Give condition powders, which see, and in the early 
stage cure with glycerine four ounces, carbolic acid 
one dram, mixed and applied twice dailv, after careful 
washing. 

If the remedies for chapped heels, which see, do not 
cure, cut off the hair about the heels as short as possi- 

\ 



194 IORSE EDUCATION. 

ble. Cleanse with soap and soft water and then 
cleanse from soap. Dry the parts well. Put thirty- 
grains of chloride of zinc in one pint of water and do 
not wash but only dampen the part with it. In fifteen 
minutes apply glycerine. Keep the heels moist with 
this. Repeat this daily till better. 

41. Scratches. 

This is so like what is known in England as grease 
heel, that the remedies may be interchanged. It 
affects the same part. The causes are the same, the 
symptoms are much alike, and the remedies for one 
are used for the other. It is usually confined to the 
hind feet. It often occurs that this disease will yield 
readily to one remedy in one horse, but not in another. 

Remedy : 

One pint cider vinegar, adding four tablespoonfuls 
sulphur. After making the ankles clean with castile 
soap and warm water, wash with this preparation. 
Three or four applications will cure an ordinary case. 

For Scratches — Another. 

What will cure one horse of scratches may not cure 
another, so here are other remedies: Wash clean with 
castile soap and warm water. One ounce sugar of 
lead, one ounce burnt alum, half an ounce sulphate of 
zinc, one quart of rain water. Apply when the ankles 
are dry. In three or four days a cure is quite certain. 
For Scratches — Another. 

First keep clean. In mild cases apply linseed oil. 
If severe, take of copperas %. lb., castile soap % lb., and 
the whites of four eggs. Melt all together and bind 
on every night for three nights. 



diseases, symptoms, remedies. i95 

For Scratches. — Another. 
Goulard's Extract, - - 2 Ounces 

Sweet Oil, - - - - 2 » 

Collodion, - - - % . " 

42. A Goo Remedy. 
This is excellent for curing rheumatism or backache 
for man, and soreness or swelling of horse's legs. It 
will blister if confined under a bandage. Rub 
well the part affected and apply with a rag : 
Alcohol, 1 quart 

Salammoniac, - 2 oz. 

Gum Camphor, - 2 oz. 

Oil Hemlock, - - - 2 oz. 

Oil Vitriol, - - - - - 2 oz. 

Oil Cedar, - - - - 2 oz. 

Spirits of Turpentine, - 2 oz. 

Beef Gall, - - - - % pint 

43. Inflammation of the Bowels. 

This disease is often confounded with colic. If it is 
treated the same as for colic it will pretty surely be 
fatal. The pain in colic is not constant, in this disease 
there is no let up to the pain. Otherwise the symp- 
toms are very much alike. 

To relieve the pam give two teaspoonfulls of laud- 
anum in a little hot water every hour or two till the 
pain ceases. Saturate a blanket with hot water, and 
fold it inside a rubber sheet held in its place bv the 
ends being brought up to the side and fastened over 
the back. If food is given let it be boiled. Do not 
move the bowels for two or three days bv cathartics, 
but at the end of that time inject hot water sufficiently 



I96 HORSE EDUCATION. 

to move them. If the pain continues give 5 grains of 
nitrate of silver and half a dram of opium in a half 
pint of water, with the chill taken off. 

44. Bandages. 
Bandages are applied to the legs of the horse for 
three different purposes, viz: to give support to the 
blood-vessels and synovial capsules, also as a vehicle 
for cold or hot lotions, and thirdly for drying or warm- 
ing or cooling them. 

45. For a Hide-Bound Horse. 

Nitrate of Potash, - 4 oz. 

Crude Antimony, - 1 oz. 

Sulphur, - - 3 oz. 
Pulverize the nitrate and the antimony, then add the 

sulphur, and mix well together. Dose: a table- 
spoonful in a bran mash daily. 

46. Swelled Legs. 

Sometimes the swelling of the legs is of an inflamma- 
tory nature and it is then to be treated like any other 
such complaint. It generally appears first on the inside 
of the hind leg which becomes hot and sensitive. If it 
does not yield readily to soothing liniments, give a physic, 
and if it continues, give a tablespoonful of saltpeter in a 
bran mash, at night for three days. It is good also to 
bathe frequently in cold water with a sponge. 

47. Legs Swelled with Seurm. 

If there is no fever it is likely to be a deposit of se- 
rum, the watery part of the blood. It is apt to occur 
most when the horse first comes in from grass or 
stands too much in the stable. ' In either case moderate 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 



I 9 7 



exercise, with some warning liniment, is good. If 
he is weak give him a dram of sulphate of iron daily 
with his feed. If there are signs of any derangement 
of the kidneys as the cause, give half an ounce of pul- 
verized saltpeter with his feed for a few days. 

48. Chapped Heels. 
If the legs swell a disease in the heels often follows. 
A watery substance exudes which burns and blisters 
the skin, which cracks, becomes inflamed and very 
painful. If serious give a tonic or alterative medicine. 
At night wash with water a little warm and apply ce- 
rate of acetate of lead. Next morning apply glycerine, 
and again before taking him out to work. 

49. Liniment for Soreness in Muscles and Cords. 



Hydrate of Chloral, 


% 


ounce 


Tinct. Camphor, - 


% 


a 


Oil Cedar, 


2 


a 


Oil Hemlock, - 


2 


a 


Spts. Nitre, - 


4 


a 


Alcohol, 


8 


a 


Apply by rubbing well twice a day. 






50. Harness and Saddle Galls. 






Tinct. Camphor, - 


3 Ounces 


Hamamelis, - 


4 


a 


Tannic Acid, - 


% 


a 


Apply three times a day. 






51. Alterative and Tonic 






Fluid Extract Taraxacum, 


2 ounces 


" " Sanguinaria, 


2 


a 


" " Hydrastis, - <■ 


2 


M 



I98 HORSE EDUCATION. 

Fluid Extract Uva Ursi, - 4 Ounces 

" " Nux Vomica, - 1 " 

Tinct. Ferri, - - 3 " 

Alcohol, - 4 " 

Aqua, - - - 4 " 

Dose, T.y 2 ounces 3 times a day. 

52. Pneumonia. 

This is the same as lung fever, or inflammation of 
the lungs. The horse first has a chill, then a cold 
clammy sweat, distressed and rapid breathing, rapid 
pulse, holds down his head, feet wide apart, groans 
when made to move, legs and ears deadly cold. 

Give Viratrum Viridi, 20 drops. In y 2 hour give 15 
drops. Then once in three hours until symptoms are 
better. Then give of the medicine less in quantity and 
less frequently. Rub the patient's legs with a whisk of 
straw, then bandage. Do not give any feed for some 
time after the horse appears better, except scalded bran 
made thin with water. Protect the horse with a good 
blanket, and keep him quiet. A little mustard wet with 
water and rubbed into the hair just back of the should- 
er will act as a counter irritant, and may be of benefit in 
severe cases. Avoid anything that would cause a re- 
lapse, such as Over-feeding, or moving the patient too 
soon. 

53. Condition Powders. 

Pulv. Root Gentian, - - 2 x / 2 Ounces 

" Elecampane, - - 2 " 

" Sassafras Root, - - 5 " 

" Skunk Cabbage, «= 1 " 

" Cream Tartar, - - 1 "• 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 



■99 



Pulv. Saltpeter, 


- 


2 


Ounces 


'• Sulphur, 


- 


6 


a 


" Fox glove, 


_ 


1 


a 


" Bloodroot, 


_ 


1 


Dram 


" Ginger, 


_ 


3 


Ounces 


Mix and grind w 


ell together. 






Dose : Give one tablespoonful twice a 


day. 




54- 


The Oil of Gladness. 






Alcohol, 


IN THESE PROPORTIONS. 




y 2 Pint 


Spirits Nitre, 


- 


1 


Ounce 


Aqua Ammonia, 


- 


1 


u 


Oil Sassafras, 


- 


% 


a 


Origanum, 


_ 


1% 


Drams 


Oil Anise, 


_ 


% 


' « 


Chloroform, 


- 


% 


Ounce 



This remedy should always be kept tightly corked. 
It is widely used both internally and externally. Many 
families keep it constantly and give it in small doses 
for any ordinary disease. For headache, neuralgia, 
rheumatism, sore throat or inflammation of kidneys, 
bathe with this remedy and take one fourth of a tea- 
spoonful in a little water. For diseases of the stomach 
or bowels take internally only, twice a day. 

This remedy has been found admirable for horses 
for almost all complaints. For sweeney, sprains, 
bruises, or swellings or any malady where the skin is 
unbroken apply as a liniment. For internal ailments, 
as colic, disease of the kidneys, etc., a dose for a horse 
is one ounce in half a pint of water, twice a day. 

55. To Lead the Horse from a Burning Barn. 
Generallv when the barn barns the horses are lost. 



200 HORSE EDUCATION. 

It is because the eyes are aazzled by the blaze, and 
they can see nothing else. No persuasion or force 
can break the attraction. There will be no trouble if 
you will draw a bag over the head, or throw your 
overcoat over the eyes, or even a pocket handker- 
chief. If the horse loses his life, it is generally be- 
cause the owner loses his head. 

56. To Cure Warts on a Horse. 

A writer in an English agricultural paper says: 
*' Anoint the wart three times with clean fresh hog's 
lard, about two days between times. You will never 
have need to make the third application." Nobody 
will try this because it is so cheap and so easy. 

To Protect the Horse from Flies and all Insects. 

Walnut leaves, 4 ozs. ; lobelia leaves, 4 ozs. ; boiling 
water, 1 gallon. Let the mixture stand till cool, then 
express the liquid through cotton cloth, and add 4 ozs. 
of tinct. of cloves. Apply a small quantity all over 
the body with a sponge. 

57. A Wash. 

For wounds from barbed wire, inflamed face, fresli 
cuts or any inflammation of the skin : One tablespoon- 
ful of saleratus in one quart of buttermilk. 

This remedy looks too simple to be of any value, 
but nothing is cheaper or more convenient. Try it. 

58. Diarrhea in Young Colts. 

This malady comes of acidity of the stomach and 
bowels. Give a tablespoonful of lime water, a table- 
spoonful of paregoric and a teaspoonful of fluid extract 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 201 

of ginger in a teacupful of milk in a bottle two or 
three times a day; oftener if a bad case. If persistent, 
substitute laudanum for the paregoric, and give brandy 
in tablespoonful doses in sweetened water several 
times a day. 

59. For Thrush in the Feet. 

Clean the foot thoroughly, then apply a strong solu- 
tion of blue vitriol. Or, sprinkle on the sole a quan- 
tity of dry calomel. 

60. A Universal Ointment. 

Rosin, 4 ozs. ; beeswax, 4 ozs. ; lard, 8 ozs. ; honey, 
2 ozs. Melt slowly, bringing it gently to a boil. At 
boiling heat take it from the fire and slowly add less 
than a pint of spirits of turpentine, stirring all the time 
and stir till cool. 

This ointment is an extraordinary remedy for bruises 
in flesh of animals, as injured hoofs, galled backs, 
broken knees, cracked heels, or any kind of wounds. 
It is also good to take fire out of burns, or scalds, and 
to cure chilblains. 

No. 61. — For Wind Galls and Soft Lumps. 



Oil Origanum, 


4 


Ounces 


" Hemlock, - 


1 


u 


" Lavender, 


- 1 


a 


" Wormwood, 


2 


it 


" Spike, 


I 


<< 


Sweet Oil, 


8 


u 


Apply morning and evening. 


Rub well. 





62. Bog Spavin. 
This disease is located in front of the hock joint and 



202 HORSE EDUCATION. 

it is a firm but soft swelling. It seldom makes the 
horse lame. 

Thorough-pin is a form of bog spavin and is a sim- 
ilar affection of the hock joint. It appears on the front 
and on the outside of the hock. 

Blood spavin is also another form ot bog spavin, 
but it differs in this that it involves the front, the inside 
and the outside of the joint. The swelling is soft in 
all these. 

For cure for these affections of the hock joint use 
the same remedy as for ringbone and spavin, given in 
recipe No. 17. 

63. To Steam a Horse. 

When a horse has distemper, or is clogged up in the 
head, and it is desirable to make him discharge at the 
nose. 

Take two quarts cider vinegar in a pail and heat a 
brick red hot, and put it in the pail, and set the pail 
under his head, not too close at first, but gradually com- 
ing nearer. Put a blanket over his head and give him 
a thorough steaming. 

64. To Take the Pulse of a Horse. 

In horses the pulse, in rest and in health, beats for- 
ty times a minute. It may be felt wherever a large 
artery crosses a bone. It is generally examined in the 
horse on the cord which crosses over the bone of the 
lower jaw in front of its curved position, or in the 
bony ridge above the eye. Any material change 
from forty indicates disease. If rapid, hard and full 
it is an indication of high fever or inflammation; if rapid, 
small and weak, low fever or weakness. If slow, it 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 203 

points to brain disease; if irregular, to heart trouble. 
The pulse is as sure an indicator in a horse as in a 
man. 

65. A Good Disinfectant. 
Dissolve half a dram of nitrate of lead in a pint of 
boiling water, then dissolve two drams of common 
salt in eight or ten quarts of water; when both are 
thoroughly dissolved, pour the two mixtures together, 
and when the sediment has settled, you have a pail of 
clear fluid, which is the saturated solution of the chlor- 
ide of lead. A cloth saturated with the liquid and 
hung up in a room will at once sweeten a fetid atmos- 
phere. Poured down a sink, water-closet or drain, 
or on any decaying or offensive object, it will produce 
the same result. 

No. 66. — Hoof Ointment. 

Take y 2 lb. lard and 4 ounces rosin, heat them 
over a slow lire until melted, take the pot off the fire, 
add one ounce pulverized verdigris. Stir well to pre- 
vent running over. When partly cool add 2 ounces 
turpentine. Apply twice per week. 

67. Balling with Snow. 

To prevent the feet of horses from balling with 
snow, let the frog of the hoof and also the fetlock be 
cleaned, and well rubbed with soft soap previous to 
going out in snowy weather. It will prevent what is 
termed balling. It may prevent accidents as well as 
sprains and falls. 

68. To Corn Beef. 

This receipt is from a practical butcher, widely 



204 HORSE EDUCATION. 

known for the excellence of his corned beef : 

Salt, - 7 lbs. 

Sugar, - - - - - 3 " 

Saltpeter, - - - - 2 oz. 

Black Pepper, - - - - 2 " 

Saleratus, - - - - 2 " 
For every one hundred pounds weight of beef. 

69. Laundry Soap. 

There is often inquiry made for a recipe for mak- 
ing a good quality of soap for domestic use. Here is 
one that has been widely used and which has met 
with great favor. 

Take 7/^ lbs. sal. soda, 2 oz. borax, 1 oz. sul- 
phate of soda, and 8 y 2 lbs. good yellow bar soap. 
Dissolve the sal. soda, borax and sulphate of soda in 
4^ gallons soft water, till not a lump remains. Melt 
in the above solution the bar soap; cut the soap in very 
thin slices that it may dissolve quicker. While dis- 
solving keep stirring so as to mix them well. When 
the soap is melted it is then done. Remove from the 
fire and let stand an hour, then pour into pails or lard 
firkins. A common tin vessel will do to make the 
soap in. If it is inclined to boil over, a little cold water 
thrown in will settle it. For perfumes, if desired, add 
1 oz. of sassafras, just before it is cool. 

70. Condition Powder for Hogs. 

There will be readers of this book who would like 
to know of a safe and effectual condition powder for 
hogs. Here is one that has been well tried and that 
has succeeded. It is palatable to swine, and they will 
eat it readily. Let them have all they will take of it 



DISEASES, SYMPTOMS, REMEDIES. 205 

in a trough given them for the purpose and no epidem- 
ic will disturb them. 

Copperas, - i lb. 

Sulphur, - . - - - - i lb. 

Black Antimony, - - - i lb. 

Saltpeter, - - - - % lb. 

Common Salt, - - - - 4 lb. 

Wood Ashes, - - .- 1 Peck 
Grind fine, mix and place in their trough. 



CHAPTER LXV. 

THE QUESTION DRAWER.' 

So many questions have come in on various sub- 
jects, and so many of them are of general interest, 
that some of them are grouped here and brief answers 
given : 

I. THE BEST HALTER. 

Which is the best kind of halter for general use ? 
Answer: — The halter known as the five-ring hal- 
ter is the best. 

2. THE FASTEST TIME ON RECORD. 

What is the fastest time made by American trotters? 
Answer:— Johnston, pacer, 2: 06% ', Maud S., trot- 
ter, 2:08^; Jay-Eye-See, trotter, 2:10. 

3. THE HIGHEST PRICE FOR A HORSE. 

What is the highest price paid for a trotter in 
America ? 

Answer: — Axtell, 2:12, a trotting stallion, brought 
in October, 1889, $105,000. 

4. TO PREVENT CROWDING IN THE STALL. 

How will you prevent a colt from crowding against 
you in a stall ? 

Answer: — Take a plank about 12 feet long, 12 
inches wide and 2 inches thick, and place one end on 
the manger and the other on the floor beside the colt. 



THE QUESTION DRAWER. 2C>7 

As you enter the stall push it over gradually toward 
him, and go in, having the plank between you and 
him. You will keep him in close quarters in this way, 
and he will soon forget his trick of crowding. 

5- BEST FOOD FOR HORSES. 

What is the best grain to give to a fine horse? 

Answer: — No kind of grain surpasses the oat. 
There are objections to all other grains, as a steady 
diet. The oat recuperates exhausted muscles. It is 
easily digested, nutritious, and it makes blood and 
bone. It is not heating, does not excite sweating. If 
horses have dyspepsia they must be dieted. An oc- 
casional variety of feed is good. Grass, corn, cut 
feed, are all good in their place as promoters of appe- 
tite by affording variety, but the grain that is full of 
nourishment and not too rich, that feeds the blood 
without taxing the muscles, that fills his frame with 
life without making him nervous, is good, sound, heavy 
oats. 

6. has brought in the most money. 

What horse has gained for his owner the most 
money on the course? 

Answer: — Donavan, a three-year-old English horse, 
has won more money than any other horse now alive. 
Up to August, 1889, he had won $197,778.45. Of 
eighteen starts he won fifteen. 

7. the right way of the track. 

Should the horse in practicing be driven the direc- 
tion in which he is to trot, or the opposite? 

Answer: — The trotter should always be trained 



208 HORSE EDUCATION. 

going in the direction in which he is to make the full 
trial of his speed. If this is not done he is not sure to 
do his best in the race. It has happened that the fast- 
est horse in the lot has failed to win because he was 
trotted in the opposite direction from that in which he 
was trained. Somehow the horse becomes confused^ 
or he forms a habit of going to the right or to the left, 
and the reverse is awkward to him, much as it is to a 
man as to whether he uses his right or left hand in 
handling an axe or a hoe. Whichever a man or horse 
gets used to he cannot reverse it and immediately do 
his best. The trainer will find this out sometime and 
will profit by it. 

8. MESSENGER BLOOD. 

Have we now living any horses that are sons of 
Imported Messenger, as an owner of a fine horse that 
I know of, says his is? Another has a colt that he says 
is from a Messenger mare. Can that be so? 

Answer: — Imported Messenger died in 1808, so 
that his youngest son would now be about eighty 
years old. A mare descended in a recorded line from 
the same Jree would be very respectable but would 
probably not be over one ten-thousandth part of orig- 
inal Messenger blood. It sounds well where there is 
no one to set it right, to say, " This horse is a Mes- 
senger." The claim is very thin and will not answer 
instead of form or speed. 

9. THE BEST BIT TO USE. 

What kind of a bit do you use? 

Answer: — I use different kinds of bits for different 



THE QUESTION DRAWER. 20Q. 

purposes, and for different horses. One must first 
learn the nature of the horse. For a fretful horse a 
bar bit is best. For general purposes I use a jointed 
bit. A curb bit is only fit to use on a horse under 
the saddle. If a horse is inclined to run away use a 
Rockwell bit. The mouth is the tenderest part of the 
horse on which force can be expended for controlling 
him. Harshness in the use of the bit is likely to pro- 
duce what it is designed to remedy, and make a horse 
do, for pain and rage, the more wrong. Jerking at 
the tender mouth of a horse is a great cruelty. 

IO. CLIPPING HORSES. 

Would you advise clipping horses? 

Answer : — No, never. It is far from ornamental to 
the horse — it cannot be other than detrimental to 
health. It is possible, with great care as to clothing 
and unchanging warmth of stable, that the fatal effects 
of clipping may be postponed, but they are sure to 
come. Even the clipping of the heels and legs of 
horses is a frequent cause of disease. To take off all 
his coat adds nothing to the comfort of the horse nor 
as most people believe, to his good looks, and certainly 
it contributes nothing to his health or strength. It in- 
terrupts the healthy action of the skin, and it is almost 
certain to leave disease, if not in the skin, then in some 
other over-burdened organs of the animal. 

II. THE OPEN BRIDLE. 

Would you drive with an open bridle from the be- 
ginning, or would you adopt it after the colt is trained? 
Answer: — No, I would not use an open bridle at 



2IO HORSE EDUCATION. 

any time. I prefer an easy fitting, blind bridle of soft 
leather, not too short in the head stall. Your horse 
has no business with any part of the world except 
what is straight before him. Take off the blinders 
and then if you touch the whip he will see the motion 
and he will start much worse than from a stroke of it. 
Then he will soon slacken his gait, become slattern 
and irregular in his motion, and start again in sudden 
surprise when the whip is touched. If you want a 
steady-going, spirited driver, safe from starts and 
frights of every kind, you will discard the open bridle 
from the first. 

12. THE BLOOD OF THE WILD HORSE. 

If there are herds of wild horses never yet domesti- 
cated, would it not infuse new and better blood into 
our present stock to breed with them ? 

Answer: — There is good reason to believe that all 
the horses now running wild are fugitives from the 
service of man, and their ancestors once belonged to 
private owners. The animals that serve man, as the 
horse, dog, sheep and others, do not improve so rap- 
idly in the wild state as in the domesticated. What 
should we gain by breeding with a mustang, or the 
ewe-necked weakling of the pampas, or the unshapely 
wild horse of southern Russia? To breed from these 
would turn the horse-clock back more than a hundred 
years. Speed and strength do not degenerate with 
domestication; on the contrary, they increase, for the 
tame horse can carry a man and overtake a wild one. 

13. THE USE OF THE WHIP. 

Would you use the whip freely in breaking or driving? 



THE QUESTION DRAWER. 211 

Answer: — The whip is useful in training horses 
just as sawdust is useful in feeding cattle — the less 
sawdust the better. So the less whip the better. The 
whip breeds stubbornness and balkiness. It is often 
the cause of heaviness and awkwardness of gait. 
There is no animal that so readily gives his confidence 
and affection to his owner as does a horse. Most 
horses can be made gentle by kindness. It is at any 
rate the best way to use the whip just as little as pos- 
sible. If the horse becomes used to obey the voice he 
will be quieted at once when otherwise he would be 
frightened, and he will struggle on under a load that 
the whip would make him utterly refuse to cany. 
The less of the whip, the more of the horse. Cruel 
welts are no sign of horsemanship, but prove the 
want of it. 

14. HOW TO DRIVE A HORSE UP TO THE CARS. 

How can you make a horse, old or young, go 
quietly up to the cars? 

Answer : — A horse that is afraid of the train should 
be driven where he can see it. This should be done 
often, each time going a little nearer. The reason he 
is afraid is that he does not understand what it is. *By 
a gradual approach he will come to regard it as a 
passing wagon. Let him go towards it slowly, and 
to see it well. Use the same rule as to fright about 
anything else. After a while you can take him quite 
up to the train. To get him accustomed to the 
whistle of the locomotive is a different thing and will 
take quite as long to free him from fear of it as from 
the fear of anything else, perhaps longer, for he cannot 



212 HORSE EDUCATION. 

see or smell an alarming sound. The secret of it is to 
get him accustomed to it gradually. All this can be 
done as a part of the training of a colt as well as not. 
It adds to the value of a horse to have him not afraid 
of the train, from ten dollars to fifty according to the 
work for which he is desired. 

15. REPRODUCTION OF QUALITIES. 

Can we with certainty reproduce the qualities of 
the stallion? 

Answer: — Not always; there are too many factors 
here to make the result certain. It sometimes seems 
that ten different colts, of the same sire and mare, will 
be as unlike, mentally and physically, as any ten boys 
who are full brothers. There are pre-natal causes 
that affect an animal's size, color or shape. But there 
is in this respect a great difference in sires. There 
are some that impress their likeness very lightly on 
their progeny, others again very powerfully. The 
same is true of mares. One who breeds for rare 
qualities of speed or form should select only from the 
breeding stock that has demonstrated its power to re- 
produce its characteristics in the offspring. Nutwood,, 
a horse of which a short sketch is given in chapter lv, 
is a good representative of the class whose progeny 
are generally true to the ancestral stock in color, size, 
form and speed. In this quality there are great dif- 
ferences among good strains and good horses. The 
careful breeder must gather facts for himself on this" 
point. 

l6. SALT FOR THE HORSE. 

Why should the horse have salt ? 



THE QUESTION DRAWER. 21 J 

Answer: — When vegetable substances are kept 
warm and moist, there is a natural tendency to fermenta- 
tion. When this occurs there is an unhealthy sourness 
of the stomach, the food does not digest and local fever 
follows. Salt tones up the stomach so that the digestive 
process is begun at once. Salt also directly prevents 
decay of the food. If fermentation is allowed to occur 
worms are apt to infest the intestinal canal. It is well 
to keep salt at hand and to give it frequently. I would 
not keep rock salt in the manger all the time. When 
the horse is in pasture he needs salt frequently, as well 
as when feeding on new grain. 

l6. SUNSTRUCK HORSES. 

Are horses sunstruck the same as men ? 

Answer: — Yes, the sun has the same effect upon 
horses as upon men. The Rural World relates that 
a fine horse worth $2,000, was hitched in front of a 
stall at the St. Louis fair, in 1889, when the tempera- 
ture in the shade was 86. The direct rays of the sun 
and the radiated heat from the buildings were too 
much for him. He staggered, fell and died. See ref- 
erence to sunstroke in medical department. 

THE INCREASING SPEED OF TROTTERS. 

17. How can we account for the rapidly increasing 
speed of trotters ? 

Answer: — i. The tracks are improved. They 
are better planned, better made, and are kept in better 
condition. 2. Shoeing is done now to favor, not to 
retard the trotter. The improved shape and the ad- 
justed weight of the shoe are factors of speed. 3. 



214 



HORSE EDUCATION. 



The training is improved. Training to develop speed 
has become a profession and commands better salaries 
than do college professors. The trainer now has in- 
telligence, patience, skill. 4. The commingling. of 
blood so as to produce speed is under strict and scien- 
tific rules. Poor strains are voted out. The combi- 
nations that produce speed have come to be better 
understood. 5. Success has set competition on fire. 
The speed of the trotter has come down from 3 : 00 to 
2:0834 m about seventy years. The gate is open for 
the trotter in 2 : 00. He is practicing for it on a thou- 
sand tracks. 

18. PRICES OF FAST TROTTERS. 



What are the highest prices that fast trotters have 
brought? 

Answer: — The following is a partial list of trotting 
horses that have sold for $20,000 and over. Many 
of them are not now living, and others of those still 
living could not be bought now for $100,000. 

Acolyte $ 40,000 

Anteo, 2:16^ 30,000 

Antebelo 26,000 

Axtell 105,000 

Bell Boy 5 1,000 

Blackwood 30,000 

Dexter, 2 : 17^ in 

1867 35> 000 

Doncaster, English 

Thoroughbred. . . 70,000 

Edward Everett... 20,000 

Fearnaught. 2 : 23^ 40,000 



Lady Maude, 2:18^ 


20,000 


Mascott, a 2-year- 




old 


26,000 


Maud S., 2:08^, 




in 1884 


40,000 


Nutwood, 2 : 183^ . . 


22,000 


Pancoast, 2:21^.. 


28,000 


Patron, 2 : 14^ .... 


27,000 


Pocahontas, 2 : 18, 




in 1864 


35,000 


Rarus, 2 : 13^, in 




i879 


36,000 



THE QUESTION DRAWER. 



215 



Geo. M. Patchen, Rosalind, 2:21^,.. $20,000 

2:23^ $25,000 Sam Purdy, 2:20^ 22,000 

Gov. Sprague, Socrates, 2:23^... 20,000 

2 : 20^ 27,000 Stamboul, 2 : 14^ • • 5 ) 000 

Happy Medium. . .. 22,500 Startle, 2 : 19, in 

Jay Gould, 2 : 20^ . 30,000 1870 20,000 

Jerome Eddy, 2:16^ 25,000 St. Julien 20,000 

LadyThorne,2:i8^ 30,000 Wedgewood, 2 : 19. . 25,000 



19. 



HE PULLS OFF HIS BLANKET. 



How can I prevent a horse from biting and tearing 
off his blanket. 

Answer: — Sprinkle pulverized cayenne pepper all 
over the parts that he can reach, for half a week, or 
longer if he has a poor memory. 



CHAPTER LXVI. 

A MODEL HORSEMAN.. 

Mr. Robert Bonner, of New York, is the only man 
in the United States who has a stable full of celebra- 
ted horses, that are not kept for the track. His fancy 
for fine horses — to be the owner of the finest — has led 
him to expend $500,000 in their purchase. Ill-health 
led him to purchase a fast driver, in 1856, for $375, 
that was equal to a mile in three minutes. At several 
times he has bought the fastest on the turf at the time, 
such as Dexter, Rarus, Maud S. and Sunol. 

Since i860, Mr. Bonner has bought as follows: 
i860, Lady Palmer, for $5,000; 1861, Flatbush Maid, 
$6,500; 1864, Pocahontas, $40,000; 1865, Auburn, 
$13,000; 1867, Dexter, $35,000. Afterwards Mr. 
Bonner added to his rare collection, Bruno, $15,000; 
Joe Elliott, iji 10,000; Startle, $20,000; Mambrino Ber- 
tie, $10,000; Lady Stout, $15,000; Grafton, $15,000; 
Wellesly Boy, $12,000; Maud Macey, $10,000; Edwin 
Forrest, $16,000; Rarus, $36,000; Maud S., $40,000; 
and Sunol, finally, for a price "exceeding any sum 
ever paid for a horse in the United States." 

His farm near Tarrytown, N. Y., is a paradise of 
horses, whose blood shall quicken speed around the 
earth. It is the ambition of every owner of flying feet 
in the United States to be the owner of the first horse 
that comes down the home stretch and finishes his mile 
in 2 : 00. 



PART EIGHTH. 

THE DOG. 



CHAPTER LXVII. 

THE TEACHABLENESS OF DOGS. 

The dog can be trained to do anything that an ani- 
mal without hands or voice can do. He was the first 
creature that deserted his natural confederates and 
allied himself to man. His surrender was complete. 
He left his forest home, his independent search for 
food, made the abode of man his preference; content- 
edly he accepted any food given him, and devoted him- 
self to the capture of his unsurrendered fellow creat- 
ures for the use of his master. Of all the animals that 
have at any time submitted themselves to man there 
are none that take on so readily as the dog the 
tempers and passions of man, as anger, jealousy, 
envy, love, hope, hatred and grief. He shows also 
generosity, gratitude, pride and fear. Baron Cuvier 
calls the dog, " The completest, the most singular, and 
the most useful conquest ever made by man." 

In the dog, as in man, we prize the highest inherited 
qualities. In both if we desire a good performer in 
any art, we select him early from a family that excels, 
and then give him the finest education in the desired 
studies. Generations of education and of good habits 



2l8 .IORSE EDUCATION. 

give alike to man and dog a tendency to learn, and a 
facility of comprehension, so that the dog trainer has 
many more chances of success, and so has the dog, if 
both be from an educated ancestry. It is possible to 
bring in a densely ignorant dog and admit him to the 
aristocracy of intelligence, but one rarely has the time 
and patience for the slow process. We want the 
puppy of clean limb, of fine hair, of good eye, of bright 
intellect, and of good family. 

If you would train your own dog you must go at 
your work as you would to train your own boy. Be- 
gin early. Pre-empt his mind with thoughts and 
ambitions that you intend shall rule him while he lives. 
Do not hope to teach him everything in a week or 
two. You will save time by getting his confidence 
first. Make him believe that you are his best friend. 
Let food follow obedience till he believes they are 
cause and effect. His mistakes must not be treated 
as willful crimes. Until you get into sympathy with 
him, and until he shows his love for you, your progress 
will be very slow. The art of winning a dog's grati- 
tude and love need not be given in books. If you can- 
not invent its methods you have no gift for teaching 
dogs. 



CHAPTER LXV1II. 

THE DOG'S PRIMARY EDUCATION. 

Your pup should early learn the use of the collar. 
He need not wear it all the time, but it should be on 
him a part of every day, and always when he is taking- 
his first lessons. He should also wear a rope or chain 
until he is well used to it and knows well the differ- 
ence between being tied and being at liberty. He 
must learn, by being tied up in a comfortable place, to 
be quite contented with the chain. If a young dog is 
tied with a rope he will soon learn to gnaw it off, and 
run away, and it will be some time before he forgets 
that he outwitted you. 

Feed him yourself. Do not allow any one else to 
carry him his food. When he is so accustomed to all 
these steps that he is no longer restive, you can go on 
with his lessons. Now take his breakfast to him on a 
plate, and put the plate just out of his reach, so he can- 
not touch it. Bring him out now the length of his chain 
and let him taste his breakfast, pull back the plate and 
say " To-ho," the word having the accent and the fall- 
ing inflection on the second syllable. Keep it away 
from him until he becomes quiet, say for a second or so. 
Then suddenly pushing the plate towards him, say 
"On," repeating the lesson till he will stop eating at 
the word To-ho. He is to be patted or petted when- 
ever he shows any signs of having comprehended the 
orders. When you have him where he will stop eating 



2 20 HORSE EDUCATION. 

at the word, put a long rope on his collar and go 
with him to walk. As he trots along and the rope 
drags after him, suddenly step on it near to him and 
say "To-ho." When he stops as he must, do not keep 
him standing, but step off the rope and say "On." 
Keep working at this lesson till he will stop without 
your touching the rope, without any rope at all. He 
is then ready to learn to charge. 

TO CHARGE. 

Take him into the barn on the floor, where there is 
nothing to attract his attention. Then with a short 
rope on his collar, place your hand on his back, just 
behind his shoulders. Press him down to the floor 
and say "Charge." Now begins your work. He 
will probably roll up on his side, or jump up and 
struggle to get away. Do not say a word. Place his 
forward paws before him, and his hind paws under 
him, and his tail extended out behind on the floor. 
Don't stop till he is willing to remain in this position. 
These lessons must be thoroughly taught, one at a 
time. He will come after a while to assume this pos- 
ture at the word, charge. 

While you are teaching him to charge, take him out 
occasionally and give him rehearsals of what he has 
already learned. He has now learned To-ho, and to 
charge. Now he can learn to come to us when we 
want him. 

TO COME WHEN HE IS CALLED. 

Now the cord or rope comes in again. Let him go 
with us for exercise, and let him run and drag the 
rope after him whenever he likes. Blow on your 



THE DOGS PRIMARY EDUCATION. 221 

whistle and jerk on the rope to get him to look at you 
or to notice where you are. When he looks around, 
swing your arm in front of you and say, "Come in." 
When you give the word be sure you are in position 
to take hold of the rope and fetch him to you. This is 
to be continued till he will come without any rope. He 
must often practice what he has learned, but great 
care must be taken not to confuse him by mixing up 
his lessons, of which he now has three. 

TO QUARTER HIS GROUND. 

Take him out into an open lot or field and let him 
run till he gets the play out of him and becomes quiet. 
Then call him with a whistle or a word. He will soon 
know his owner's whistle from any other. Pat him, 
cluck to him and tell him to go on. Then throw 
something, when he looks, to the left, something good 
to eat, and let him go and get it. Then attract his 
attention and throw something to the right. By these 
motions and by his finding his toothsome reward, he 
will become accustomed by practice to follow them. 
You will sometimes have trouble in teaching this les- 
son to a dog, and again it will be comparatively easy. 
It will be very likely to require a great deal of time 
and it will need a great many repetitions. He will 
after a while take in the object, which is to scour his 
field well and find any game that may be lurking in 
the grass. In any of these lessons the dog must un- 
derstand that all this is business and after it he may 
play if he wants to. 

TO RETRIEVE. 

It is not best to teach a dog to look for, and bring 
in the killed or wounded game, until he has all the 



222 HORSE EDUCATION. 

preceding lessons well learned. He will probably be 
a year old when he learns to retrieve, and before he un- 
dertakes this lesson lie should have acquired a readi- 
ness and facility in learning, and a habit of prompt 
obedience. Most clogs of good hunting stock will take 
to retrieving naturally, especially if allowed to hunt 
with a well instructed dog. 

Before he is taught anything about retrieving, prop- 
er, the trainer will do well to take the young dog out 
for his exercise often, and occasionally take him to the 
water in company with another dog who knows his 
business. The master should have on hunter's boots, 
and should wade around in the water calling in the 
old dog and inducing the young dog to go in also, so 
that he will not be afraid of the water. When he 
comes to where he will take the water readily and will 
follow the old dog when he is sent anywhere, then 
you have him far enough in this till he is ready to 
break in the field. This can be done much more eas- 
ily by having a well trained dog to take the lead in 
the lessons in retrieving. 

But if you cannot have the use of a well trained 
dog give the pup his first lessons on the barn floor, 
where he cannot get away. Throw a ball or some- 
thing, and tell him to fetch it. Then if he pays no at- 
tention, or if he does not go, go to him, open his 
mouth, place the article in it, hold his mouth shut with 
one hand, and lead him back, without hurting him. 
Work gently and preseveringly till he will go after 
the piece and fetch. If the dog has developed any 
aptness at all to learn, this lesson can be better given 
in the field than in any other way- 



maffl 




THE DOG S PRIMARY EDUCATION. 223 

TO POINT. 

The outline of methods here given is ample for one 
who desires to train his dog for his own use. But if 
the animal is wanted for a fine field performer it 
would be better to procure at once a professional 
trainer. Having taught him these lessons thoroughly, 
take him to the field and try him. When he strikes 
game and begins to come down, keep cool }^ourself. 
Walk up to him if he stops; if he does not stop, speak 
to him, saying, "Toho," then if he stops, walk up to 
him and pat him. It would be well to have another 
person along and let him walk in front and get the 
birds to rise, and be sure and get one if possible. All 
this time you are pa}dng attention to your dog, hold- 
ing him in position, giving him to understand that his 
duty is to find and point the birds. A very few les- 
sons of this kind will make him staunch on point. 

The dog must not be allowed to range too far from 
his master. Keep him within hearing so you can 
guide him with your voice, otherwise you may lose 
control of him. If he gets away and runs at his will 
he will make himself troublesome. If he is well 
taught in the yard to obey he will generally be obedi- 
ent in the field. But if he should run wild in the field 
do not allow yourself to get excited over it. Keep 
cool and do not speak louder than just enough to 
make him hear. When you can get hold of him make 
him do whatever you had ordered him to do. Do 
not leave the spot till he perfectly obeys, if you have to 
stay a week. 

It is always to be kept in mind that in all contests 
between a trainer and his doff, the trainer must come 



224 HORSE EDUCATION. 

out ahead. Let the dog outwit you once, or disobey, 
and it may be troublesome to regain your authority 
over him. You must come out ahead every time. 

The books that tell of dog training are very explicit 
and give details of management at every juncture. 
But you must get the general idea in your mind and 
use your judgment. You will be the only one who 
knows the situation. You will also study the charac- 
ter of the dog, as the timid and the headstrong must 
each one be handled in a way to impress him, and to 
subject his will to yours. It may be necessary, before 
you finish his education, to carry a whip to the field 
and to use it with discretion. But no dog should be 
punished until he can understand well what it is for. 
Then put him through the lesson again and again till 
you secure perfect obedience. 

A young dog often gives trouble to a hunter by 
pointing on rabbits, cats or hens. This is easily 
broken up by penning him up where he cannot reach 
these creatures and let him point them for a week at 
a time if he wants to. He will soon learn that they 
are not to be noticed. This will be a much better way 
to teach him than it would be to punish him for it. 



CHAPTER LXIX. 

THE SHEPHERD DOG. 

It is nonsense to try to make a shepherd dog of a 
terrier, or of a hound. In some way, who can tell 
how? the things that a dog can learn best depend on 
what family of dog he belongs to. If you want an 
educated shepherd dog, look for a pup of that kind. 
The less he has been taught for the first half year the 
better. He can easily learn, with the aid of a. cord, 
that he cannot get away from you; lesson No. i. 
Then with a strap and the word "Here," he can learn 
that he is to come when told; No. 2. Be sure to give 
one lesson a day for about an hour, and to have one 
thing at a time to be learned, and but one word for 
each order to be given. When he comes up to you 
he is to be told, "Do," and petted, and with that word 
he will learn he is released from duty; No. 3. Then 
he is to be taught "Go," by pointing and pushing and 
coaxing until he begins to "Go;" No. 4. As he starts 
he can begin to learn the word "Halt," by the effect 
of the rope and the word; No. 5. And if these les- 
sons are well learned, in a month you can pat the head 
of both pupil and teacher. To make him bark when 
you like, you will take him when hungry and say, 
"Speak," and offer him a dainty bit. This will soon 
be learned. You can at any time teach him to go out 
by pointing to the door and saying, "Out." Each 
special thing well taught to him will be a help for him 

15 



226 HORSE EDUCATION. 

to learn the next. With a rope's end he can be taught 
to take hold at the word "Up," as he will afterwards 
take a cow's tail, and with the word "Do," he will 
learn to let go. With this start you can add words as 
you like, for example, you can say, "Go, right," and 
with a motion, send him to the right, or to the left, 
teaching but one thing at a time, always. The word 
"Fetch" can always be kept for the sheep, "Get," for 
the cattle and "Bring," for the horses. You can, as 
soon as one lesson is well learned, put a few other words 
to the one-worded orders as, "Come here," "That will 
do," "Go out," "Speak to them," "Wake them up," 
"Fetch the sheep," "Get the cattle," "Bring the 
horses," etc. The practical lessons can easily be giv- 
en with or without a trained dog. 

THE WATCH DOG. 

To train a watch dog obtain a young dog of a good 
strain for the purpose, and do all the training by the 
same hand. Follow the suggestions given above. 
Give daily, practical lessons. Give him something and 
tell him to watch it, and practice him with some 
stranger essaying to take it from him. At first make 
his lessons short and always let him begin hungry and 
feed him as soon as he is done. He very soon learns 
his duty. 



CHAPTER LXX. 

THE TRICK DOG. 

It is very easy to teach a mongrel cur almost any 
amusing little trick. The well descended, carefully 
bred dog will only learn the tricks of his own trade. 
The first thing to teach any dog is to come to you. 
This is easily done with a cord, suiting the action to 
the word. 

TO SIT DOWN. 

A few times setting him down, giving at the same 
time the word "Sit down," chucking him under the 
chin to keep his head up, will give him the idea. Pat 
him and reward him, and give him frequent practice 
and it is done. 

TO MAKE A BOW. 

As soon as he has learned to sit down, use the 
word "Make a bow," putting him through the motions 
with your hands often enough, and in a few days he 
will have it. 

TO SIT UP. 

Try him first in the corner, putting him in the posi- 
tion and telling him to sit up, and as soon as he does 
it for half a minute caress him and reward him, and 
let him end it when you tell him, "That will do." 
You have only to repeat it often enough and try him 
against the wall, and then set him out on the floor. 
All that this will need is patience for complete success. 



228 HORSE EDUCATION. 

TO STAND UP. 

A hungry dog will do anything for food. To make 
him stand up, offer it to him, holding it well up and 
keep it up long enough, saying to him, "Stand up." 
Keep doing this, giving him a lift now and then with 
your other hand, repeating the word as often as he 
tries it, and saying "That will do," when he must go 
down. He must often rehearse all he has learned but 
the lessons should not be mixed, but let him have a 
rest between them. 

TO GET INTO A CHAIR. 

This is also easily taught. You can in many ways 
coax him into a chair, always using the word "Chair" 
whenever you call him to it. After having him used 
to jumping into the chair at the word, and always re- 
warding him with caresses and whatever he likes best 
to eat, you can extend the trick by saying "Up" and 
putting his feet up on the back of the chair. This 
done, by many times trying, he will put his head down 
on his paws with the aid of your hand and the sound 
of the word "Down," each time rewarding him. 
From this there is one step more; it is to jump over 
the chair, which you can soon persuade him to do. 

TO JUMP THROUGH A HOOP. 

The methods will suggest themselves by which the 
dog can be made to jump through your arms, your 
hands being held together. Then if he is hungry he 
will jump through a hoop at the tap of the stick, for a 
bit of meat, then successfully through several hoops 
and boxes. 



THE TRICK DOG. 229 

TO GO TO THE POST OFFICE. 

Your dog can carry your mail to the post-office and 
bring your mail to you as man)- times a day as you 
choose to send him. You can easily teach him to 
carry a stick in his mouth until you tell him to give it 
up. Reward with a good bit of food and caress him. 
Then teach him to carry a basket. He can then be- 
gin to go with you to the post-office where an inmate 
of it must help you by caressing him and giving him a 
little choice food, taking the basket and changing the 
mail and putting the handle of the basket in his mouth 
and saying, "Home." You are to say "Post-office" 
to him every time you take him or send him. He will 
soon be able to go himself, wait at the door to be wel- 
comed and then set out for home. Instead of the post- 
office, he will do the same for the grocery. 

He will need definite practice on each one of these, 
not mixing them up, but taking one trick at a time, 
and dismissing each one as soon as it is done, by say- 
ing, "That will do," and giving him his reward. 

These hints will enable the beginner to make a 
prodigy of his dog in a few weeks. Other things may 
be added for all things are not equally easy to every 
dog. The greatest value in the dog will be, not in 
these unmeaning things, but in doing such useful 
things as will save human labor, or tend to the secur- 
ity of property or life. 



PART NINTH. 

IMPROVE YOUR CATTLE. 



CHAPTER LXXI. 

THE DAIRY COW. 

Generally, where a horse is kept, there is both room 
and necessity for a cow; and sometimes where there 
is room for but one, the cow is selected. The health 
and comfort of a family are greatly promoted by abun- 
dance of fresh milk without either chalk or water. It 
is important to every one to learn the signs by which 
nature certifies to a cow's good character. They are 
unmistakable. A model, useful, dairy cow may be 
known at a glance by an expert. She has a fine, long 
head, broad between the eyes, and a thin wide muzzle; 
the eyes are large and of a mild expression; the neck 
is thin and long; the ears are thin and covered within 
with a deep yellow skin; the forequarters are light 
and thin, and the whole body has much the shape of 
a wedge, increasing in size to the rear; the legs are 
thin, with fine bone; the belly is large and deep, with 
great capacity for food ; the back is broad and straight, 
and the ribs are well rounded towards the rear; the 
bones of the rump are wide apart; the tail is long and 
thin; the thighs are thin and set widely apart; the 
udder is large and full, especially behind; the teats are 



o 




THE DAIRY COW. 23 1 

• of good size, and set far apart upon a broad, level 
udder, and the milk vein, so called, which is the large 
vein leading from the udder and passing into the ab- 
domen, and which is an indication of the amount of 
blood circulating through the milk glands, and con- 
tributing to the milk secretion, should be full and tor- 
tuous in its short course. A line horn, a deep yellow 
skin, and a general elegance of form, without any 
heaviness or beeliness in any part, are also important 
indications of good quality in a cow for the dairy. 

BREEDING DAIRY COWS. 

"Like begets like," therefore, in breeding cattle 
for the dairy, select the very best milkers and breed 
them to bulls known to come from a family with good 
milk record. In purchasing a bull, it pays better to 
give a good price for a good animal, than a small 
price for a poor one. Breeding will not count for 
much without good feeding and good care. Don't 
make the mistake of supposing that a good bull is go- 
ing- to double or treble the value of a common herd 
unless the cattle all have the best of care. Breed is 
largely dependent upon feed and training, and if good 
feed and training has. given value to a herd, a lack of 
it will soon cause the breed to deteriorate. 

TO TELL THE AGES OF CATTLE. 

The Live-Stock Record gives a new and evidently a 
well-thought-out rule for telling accurately the ages of 
cattle, which is here appended: 

"A heifer has no rings on her horns until she is two 
years of age, and one is added each year thereafter. 



232 HORSE EDUCATION. 

You can, therefore, tell the age of a cow with toler- 
able accuracy by counting the rings on her horns 
and adding two to the number. The bull has no rings, 
as a rule, until he is five years old, so to tell his age 
after that period, add five to the number of rings. The 
better way to tell the age is by the teeth, which is, of 
course, the only way with polled cattle. What are 
called the milk teeth gradually disappear in front. At 
the end of three years, the second pair of permanent 
teeth are well grown, at four years the third pair and 
at five the fourth and last pair have appeared, and at 
this time the central pair are of full size. At seven 
years a dark line caused by the wearing of the teeth 
appears on all of them, and on the central pair a cir- 
cular mark. At eight years this circular mark ap- 
pears on all of them, and at nine years the central pair 
begins to shrink, and the third at eleven. After this 
period the age can only be determined by the degree 
of shrinking generally. At fifteen the teeth are near- 
ly all gone." 

The Size of the Cow. 
There are several sizes of cow, none of which is 
agreed upon as being the best. The Jersey is the 
smallest, then we have the Ayrshire, the Holstein and 
the Durham. The largest breed will require more 
food to keep beef ready for market than does the 
smaller. When the butcher comes to buy a cow he 
will give more money for the Durham than for the 
little Jersey, but then, is it economy to keep up all the 
furnaces and the food for making beef many years be- 
fore it is to be sold ? The American Dairyman says : 
"It is useless to talk about carrying large cows, with 



THE DAIRY COW. 233 

a view to making beef of them, when no longer useful 
in the dairy. This is sheer nonsense, though every 
other dairyman has a sneaking faith in the idea. No 
man should be so foolish as to carry several hundred 
pounds of blood and bone eight or ten years to make 
second-hand beef of it in the end." 

It is reasonable to believe that a medium sized cow, 
say of the larger breeds 800 to 1000 lbs weight, would 
be an economical feeder, could be rushed for milk if 
need be, would require not over much room in the 
stables, would likely produce good calves, and would 
likely be -of a sound constitution. With a cow of such 
size you will not have to feed the furnace for beef- 
making and keep it up for ten j^ears before you want 
to sell the beef. Two medium cows will give you more 
than double that of an over-grown one, in milk and 
beef, and will give you twice as many calves; and the 
two cows will sell more readily than one very large 
one. 

Cake In Cow's Bag. 

This is one of the most common complaints in the 
cow-yard. There is no need to have it trouble the 
cow for as much as a day. Take two parts kerosene 
and one part lard. Warm, mix, apply. It is a sov- 
ereign remedv. 

Obstructed Teat in Cow. 

Obstructions in the teat are no uncommon thing. 
Small tumors form in the milk ducts. These usually 
point and break, but sometimes the enlargement is 
permanent. It may be removed by a blunt end steel 
probe, having triangular sharp edges projecting about 



234 HORSE EDUCATION. 

an inch below the end. This cuts the tumor and 
opens the passage. While healing, a well oiled quill 
raav be inserted with a circular leather collar, which 
may be kept in place by a piece of sticking plaster and 
removed while milking, or a wooden peg may be used 
with a head on it. A milking tube should be used 
while milking. Be careful not to make it so long as 
to touch the udder. 

A Cow's Demands. 

A cow of mine has well-settled convictions respect- 
ing rights of animals. She firmly believes that she is 
as much entitled to meal as I am to milk. She has 
converted me to her opinion, or rather, forced me to 
acquiesce, writes H. T. Brooks, in New York Tribune. 
In the spring after she calved, I gave her night and 
morning, at milking times, a feed of bran and meal. 
When the grass improved I omitted the bran and 
meal, but proposed to milk her all the same. She ob- 
jected to this arrangement, kicked, and walked spite- 
fully away. My man and I got her in close quarters, 
held her fast, determined to have milk at our own 
terms, but Crumpt Horns was just as determined that 
we should'nt have it. We soon found that the cow 
controlled the supplies; she determined not to "give 
down" her milk. We took to coaxing and patting 
her, persistently, but gently, squeezed her teats; it 
availed little; we retired, worsted, thinking we would 
get a double portion in the morning; but in the morn- 
ing she gave us little more than half her usual quanti- 
ty, and so on for a week. I saw that without meal 
she would diminish her milk and soon dry up. I said 



THE DAIRY COW. 235 

to my hired man, "Bad luck to the fellow that quar- 
rels with his cow; we should remember that in all 
milking arrangements the cow is one party con- 
cerned, in fact, the party of the first part. Unless we 
can be on good terms with our cow we would better 
not have one. Thinking it all over, I believe the cow 
is in the right. She gave us a good mess of milk for 
a moderate feed of meal, and we have no right to ask 
her to do better than that; we will give meal night 
and morning as long as we milk her." This we did, 
and she nearly came back to her former quantity; a 
cow allowed to fall away doesn't entirely recover. I 
record the particulars of this controversy with my 
cow because it forcibly suggests several important 
considerations : 

1. A cow has almost unlimited control over her 
milk; she bestows or withholds it at pleasure. It is 
therefore essential that the cow have no cause for com- 
plaint; she should sustain amicable relations with her 
milker; anything offensive in his deportment, an angry 
word, rough, uncourteous manners, sharp finger nails; 
any annoyance whatever, such as a sore teat, trouble- 
some flies, everything that is disagreeable, in a greater 
or less degree lessens the flow of milk, and premature- 
ly dries up the cow. A cow taken to a new place 
shrinks in her milk, and seldom recovers for a whole 
year. A cow should be milked by the same person. 

2. The great liking cows have for bran and meal 
shows they are adapted to the animal's necessities. 
While no single food is better than grass, fed alone it 
does not give the best quality of milk or the greatest 
quantity. A little meal may be profitably fed, even 



236 HORSE EDUCATION. 

when grass is abundant and in its best condition — my 
cow demanded it, and she was right. As the grass 
grows less in quantity and poorer, I increase the meal 
and put it on green corn-stalks cut fine. Some per- 
sons object to feeding cows at milking-time because 
they are uneasy and troublesome if the customary al- 
lowance is withheld. Then don't withhold it. It pays 
to feed meal to cows giving milk, and if a cow 
insists on having it every time, as mine does, she does 
a good turn by forcing us to be regular. Of all losses 
incurred by American farmers, scarcely anyone is 
greater than that which comes from allowing cows to 
fail in their milk for want of enough food of a kind 
that answers their needs. 



CHAPTER LXXII. 
VALUABLE INFORMATION. 



MEASURE AND WEIGHT OF MEDICINES. 

One teaspoonful makes i dram. 
Three " " i tablespoonful or y 2 ounce. 
One tablespoonful (large) - - % u 

Four " " y 2 gill. 

Sixty drops i teaspoonful or i dram. 

One breakfast teacup - i gill. 

Many Useful Facts. 
A barrel contains - 10,752 cubic inches. 

A bushel " 2,150 2-5 " " 

A standard gallon (liquid) contains 231 " " 

A gallon (dry measure) " 268 4-5 " " 

A gallon of pure water weighs - 8?339 lbs. 

Loaf sugar, broken, 1 qt. is - - 1 lb. 

White " powdered, 1 qt. is - 1 lb., 7 02. 

Ten eggs are 1 lb. 

A common tumbler holds - ^ pint. 

A quart of wheat flour weighs - 1 lb. 

A " " corn meal " - - 1 lb. 2 oz. 

A pint of soft butter " - - - 1 lb. 

A " " sugar " - 1 " 
A ton of soft coal requires 50 cubic feet of space. 



A 


" " hard " 


u 


46 


A 


" " coke " 


(( 


70 


A 


" " charcoal 


c< 


IO4 



238 HORSE EDUCATION. 

A million dollars in gold coins weigh 1 ^ tons. 

A " " " silver " " 26% " 

A million dollars in small silver coins weigh 25 " 

A " " " 5-cent nickles 100 " 

A ton of pure gold is worth - $602,798.21 

A " " " silver is " - - 37,704.84 
A bushel of corn will make 10^ lbs. of pork. 

TABLES OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 

CLOTH MEASURE. 

2y 2 inches 1 nail, 4 nails 1 quarter, 4 quarters 1 
yard. 

DRY MEASURE. 

2 pints make 1 quart, 8 quarts 1 peck, 4 pecks 1 
bushel, 36 bushels 1 caldron. 

apothecaries' weight. 

20 grains make 1 scruple, 3 scruples 1 dram, 8 
drams 1 ounce, 12 ounces 1 pound. 

avoirdupois weight. 

16 drams make 1 ounce, 16 ounces 1 lb., 25 lbs. 
1 quarter, 4 quarters 100 weight, 2000 lbs. 1 ton. 

liquid or wine measure. 
4 gills make 1 pint, 2 pints 1 quart, 4 quarts 1 gal- 
lon, 31^ gallons 1 barrel, 2 barrels 1 hogshead. 

long measure. — distance. 

3 barleycorns makes 1 inch, 12 inches 1 foot, 3 feet 

1 yard, 5 y 2 yards 1 rod, 40 rods 1 furlong, 8 furlongs 

1 mile. 

troy weight. 

24 grains make 1 pennyweight, 20 pennyweights 1 



VALUABLE INFORMATION. 239 

ounce, 12 ounces i pound. This is for gold, silver 
and jewels. 

ALL KINDS OF MEASURES — DISTANCE. 

3 inches make one palm, 4 inches 1 hand, 6 inches I 
span, 18 inches 1 cubit, 21.8 inches 1 bible cubit, 2}4 
feet 1 militar}^ pace. 

SQUARE MEASURE. 

144 square inches make 1 square foot, 9 square feet 
1 square yard, 30^ square yards 1 square rod, 40 
square rods 1 rood, 4 roods 1 acre, or 160 square rods 
1 acre. 

CUBIC MEASURE. 

1,728 cubic inches make 1 cubic foot, 27 cubic feet I 
cubic yard, 128 cubic feet 1 cord (wood), 40 cubic feet 
1 ton (shipping), 2,150.42 cubicinches 1 standard bushel, 
231 cubic inches 1 standard gallon. 1 cubic foot is 

four-fifths of a bushel. 

ALL KINDS OF MEASURES — QUANTITY. 

12 things make 1 dozen, 12 dozen 1 gross, 12 gross 
1 great gross, 20 things 1 score, 196 lbs. flour 1 
barrel, 200 lbs. beef or pork 1 barrel, 135 lbs. potatoes 
or apples 1 barrel, 280 lbs. salt 1 barrel, 200 lbs. sugar 
1 barrel, 240 lbs. lime 1 barrel, 200 lbs. fish 1 quintal, 
100 lbs. nails 1 keg. To make one box requires 50 
lbs. soap, 20 lbs. raisins, 2 lbs. cigars, 20 lbs. soda, 40 
lbs. cheese, 25 lbs. tobacco, 62 lbs. tea, 60 lbs. saleratus, 
25 lbs. chocolate, 56 lbs. butter 1 firkin, 5 1 DS « spices 
1 can, 1,100 lbs. rice 1 tierce, 2,150.42 cubic inches 1 
bushel, 231 cubic inches 1 bushel, 14 lbs. 1 stone, 
43,560 feet 1 acre, 100 square feet 1 square, 5,280 feet 
1 mile, 24^ cubic feet 1 perch of stone, 128 cubic feet 
1 cord. 



240 



HORSE EDUCATION. 



LEGAL WEIGHT OF A BUSHEL IN DIFFERENT STATES. 



2. * 



CO 


00 


0*5 


O 


O 


-0 






3" 

























»r 




3 


3 






3" 

a 


CL 

O 
O 

3 




3 

O 

O 


S 




48 


52 




70 


v» 


60 


45 




54 








5° 


40 


5= 








48 


5- 


56 


70 


50 


60 


48 


48 


56 




50 


60 




42 


56 
56 


70 


48 


60 


47 




56 




48 


60 


48 


52 


56 


70 


48 


60 


48 


S2 


56 


70 


48 


60 


48 


5" 


56 


68 


50 


60 


48 


S2 


56 


70 




60 


48 


5° 


3" 


7" 


5° 


60 


47 


55 


55 


70 


50 


60 


3 2 




50 








48 


48 


56 




50 


60 


47 


48 


56 


70 


48 




48 


48 


56 




5° 


60 


48 


48 


56 


7" 


50 


60 


48 


42 


56 






60 


48 


52 


56 






00 


48 


5 2 


56 




50 


60 


48 


K 2 56 


70 


5 o|6o 


50 


40 


52 


70 




60 






56 




50 


60 


48 


SO 


56 






60 


48 


4 s 


56 






60 


48 


f>o 


54 




46 




48 


so 


5" 


70 




60 


46 


42 


56 






60 


47 


48 


56 






56 


48 




56 




50 


60 


48 


56 


56 


7" 


5° 


60 


4 S 


SO 


56 


7-' 


5° 


60 


48 


46 


5" 






6b 


4^ 


52 


56 


7" 


5" 


60 


45 


42 


56 






50 


48 


52 


56 






60 


48 


So 


56 


70 




on 



Arkansas 

Arizona 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Dakota 

Delaware 

District of Columbia 

Georgia 

Illinois 

Indiana , 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire — 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode island 

South Carolina 

Tennessee 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 



46 





60 


46 


-1 


33 


65 


45 




60 














60 










45 


So 


60 


60 










60 


60 








56 


42 


55 


60 


60 


24 


33 


56 


45 


55 


60 




24 


33 


56 


45 




60 




2 5 


33 




45 




60 




24 


33 


S6 


45 


55 


60 




24 


33 


54 


45 


60 


60 


60 


24 


39 


56 


45 


5° 


64 

60 


60 








45 


58 


60 


60 


22 
28 


28 

28 


56 


45 




6b 




24 


33 


56 


45 


5o 


60 










45 


55 


60 
60 


60 
60 

60 


24 


33 


56 


45 




60 


60 


25 


33 


55 






62 


60 
50 






55 


44 




60 


60 


22 

38 


33 

j8 


56 


45 




60 


60 


26 


33 


44 






€0 


60 


26 




5<> 


45 


60 


60 


60 








15 


55 


60 


60 


28 


32 


56 


45 


5" 


60 


60 


28 


28 




40 




60 




33 


33 


56 


45 


42 


60 




28 


28 


56 


45 



14 60 



14 60 

14 6o- 
1 4 60 
■4!6o 
14 60 
14 60- 



64- 
60 
64 
6o- 
60 
62 



VALUABLE INFORMATION. 



24I 



COST OF SMALL QUANTITIES 


OF HAY. 




Price per 


25 lbs. 


40 lbs. 


100 lbs. 


200 lbs. 


300 lbs. 


Ton. 


worth. 


worth. 


worth. 


worth. 


worth. 


$4 OO 


5 cts - 


10 cts. 


20 cts. 


$ 40 


$ 60 


5 °° 


6 


12 " 


2 5 " 


5° 


75 


6 00 


1V2 " 


15 " 


3° ' 


60 


90 


7 00 


s% " 


17 " 


35 " 


70 


1 05 


8 00 


10 


20 


40 ' 


80 


1 20 


9 00 


n 


22 


45 " 


90 


1 35 


10 00 


12^ " 


2 5 ;; 


5° " 


I OO 


1 5° 


1 1 00 


t& " 


27 * 


55 " 


I IO 


1 65 


12 00 


15 " 


30 " 


60 " 


I 20 


1 80 


J 3 °° 


16 


32 n 


65 " 


I 30 


1 95 


14 00 


17^ " 


35 " 


70 " 


I 40 


2 10 


15 00 


i854 " 


37 " 


75 " 


1 5° 


2 25 



Kind of Seed. 



AMOUNT OF OIL IN SEEDS. 
Per cont. Oil. Kind of Seed. 



Bitter Almond 55 

Barley 2% 

Clover hay 5 

Hemp seed 19 

Indian corn 7 

Linseed 17 

Meadow hay 3^ 

Oat-straw 4 



Per cent. Oil. 



Oats 6j4 

Rapeseed 55 

Sweet Almond 47 

Turnip seed. 45 

White mustard 37 

Wheat bran 4 

Wheat-straw 3 

Wheat flour . 3 



RELATIVE VALUE OF DIFFERENT FOODS FOR STOCK 

One hundred pounds of good hay for stock are equal to: 

Pounds. I Articles. 



Articles. 

Beans 28 

Beets 669 

Clover, red, green ... 373 

Carrots. 378 

Corn 62 

Clover, red, dry 88 

Lucerne 19 

Mangolds 368^ 

Oat-straw 317 



Poundr. 

Oats 59 

Oil cake, linseed ...... 43 

Peas, dry 37 % 

Potatoes 350 

Rye straw 429 

Rye • 53^2 

Turnips 469 

Wheat » . 44}4 



242 



HORSE EDUCATION. 



COMPARATIVE AGES IN YEARS, OF QUADRUPEDS, BIRDS, 



AND FISHES. 



YRS. 

Ass 30 

Baboon 30 

Bear 20 

Beaver 50 

Camel 100 

Cat 15 

Cow 20 

Deer 20 

Dog 14 

Elephant 400 

Fox 25 

Horse 30 

Hyena 25 

Jaguar 25 

Leopard 25 

Lion 70 

Monkey 30 

Rabbit 8 

Rhinoceros...- ■ 20 



YRS. 
IO 



Sheep 

Squirrel 7 

Stag 50 

Swine 15 

Tiger 21 

Wolf 20 

Blackcap.. . . 15 
Blackbird.... 10 

Crane 24 

Eagle. ...... 100 

Goose 80 

Goldfinch ... 20 

Hawk 40 

Hen. ....... 15 

Linnet 10 

Nightingale . 15 
Parrot. . . ...100 

Peacock .... 20 



YRS. 

Pelican 50 

Pheasant .... 15 

Pigeon 16 

Raven 100 

Redbreast. ... 10 

Skylark 10 

Swan 100 

Thrush 8 

Wren 2 

Carp ........ 200 

Codfish 15 

Crocodile 100 

Eel 10 

Pike 100 

Porpoise . ... 30 
River Trout.. 50 

Salmon 10 

Whale 400 



PERIODS OF GESTATION IN ANIMALS. 

With domestic animals there are unaccountable va- 
riations, which, in the horse-kind, sometimes amount to 
a whole month of excess. The following should be 
calculated upon as correct : 



Elephant 2 Years 

Ass-kind ......11 Months 

Horse-kind n " 

Buffalo 12 

Camel .12 " 

Cow 9 " 

Lion 5 

Sheep 4 " 

Swine ....16 Weeks 

Dog 9 

Cat 8 " 



Wolf. 90 Days 

Goose (sits) . • • .30 " 

Swan 42 " 

Peafowl 28 " 

Pigeon 14 " 

Parrot 40 " 

Duck 30 " 

Turkey 28 " 

Hen 21 " 

Canary 14 " 



— SEE ■* 

ADVERTISEMENTS 



FOR 



HORSE OWNERS. 



Prussian Cavalry 

HOOF SALVE. 

Stands in the Front Rank and Leads all 
Veterinary Ointments. 

It is positively the remedy for every Farmer, Liveryman, Stockman 
and Horse-owner to have on hand in case of need, for 

CUTS, SCRATCHES, GALLS, TREAD. 

CALKS, THRUSH, CHAFES, 

DRY, HARD, CONTRACTED AND CRACKED HOOFS, 

GROWS NEW HOOF, POISONED WOUNDS, 

FROST BITES, FOOT-ROT, 

CHRONIC FOUNDER, CRACKED TEATS ON COWS, 

and Wounds and Sores of every nature. Counteracts Blood-poisoning 
if applied before suppuration; keeps the feet in good condition; healing, 
soothing, cleansing; giving satisfactory results; made from the best ma- 
terials and put up in generous quantity; horses can be worked and healed 
while working: healing accomplished in a few days which otherwise 
would take as many weeks. 

Paul J. Daemicke, Hardware Merchant, 50 and 52 State St., Chicago, says 
that one of his horses was cured of Scratches in five days by its application, after 
having been under treatment for a month previously without benefit. 

Dr. S. B. Collins, La Porte, Ind., says that he used it for Dry Hoofs, Scalled 
neck and for boils on back and shoulders, with perfect satisfaction in all cases, after 
having tried other remedies without success. 

PRICE. 50c. LIVERY SIZE, $ 1 .00. 

MAILED ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. 

Pr *p* red b v TONNAR & CO., 

274 E. 57th St., Chicago, III. 
For Sale By Druggists. 

FULLER A FULLER CO., CH.CAGO. ILL, I ^^ ^ 



NOYES BROS. & CUTLER. ST. PAUL. MINN., \ 









mm&y :-y. 




3RESS 



002 863 228 9 






■i 




HHi 



